Part 1 of a Science fiction Story.

There are several different accounts on the creation of life on the Earth. A certain religion that rhymes with Fristianity (the name has been disguised as not to embarrass said religion) somehow got it into their pretty little heads that the world was created by a large man that nobody, except a guy on a mountain, an Arc builder, and a 13 year old pregnant virgin, can see hear or touch. In six days no less. The story sort of loses focus and degenerates into something about special fruit that you can't eat.

The Jews probably believe the same thing. Nobody really knows.

Norse Legend dictates that first there was something called a Ginnungagap
that later was filled with Elivgar until it became a Muspelheim, and Yimir went to sleep under Udmehelia's arm.

What the fuck?

Some American Indian tribe believes that the world was carried into existence on the back of a turtle, named Frank. Frank then got tired of doing all the work and dropped the world off at his mother in laws house, presumably to go get a bite to eat.

These are all of course, absolutely ridiculous.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 1 Maddox Flint: Lucky Drifter.

Maddox Flint had a box of Altoids in his pocket. Or rather a box of Altoid. He only had one left. It's not really important right now, but it did turn out to factor rather highly in the fate of a Blackjack dealer. Just keep it in the back of your mind.

Maddox was sitting in his room, flipping through old issues of Life magazine searching for an article about General George S. Patton that included a chili con carne recipe that was supposed to be just out of this world. He didn't really think he'd find it, but nonetheless it's a pleasant way to pass the time.

Maddox didn't want to leave the house for at least a couple of days. At least not until his beard grew in again. You see Maddox really sucked at shaving.
His two handed back-ass-wards hatchet style, had never really been useful at ridding him of facial hair, so much as it tore up his face and left him a bloody weeping wreck on the bathroom floor. He generally avoided the practice all together, one time he even managed to end up with a razor sticking in hs mouth, and another protruding from his left nostril, but he'd had a notion that he might get it right this time. When he was finished, the beard was gone all right. But so were his lips. Well, more or less


Just as he'd found a damned interesting article about macaroni art, the goddamn phone rang.

"Hello"

"Mr. Maddox?"

"Uh, no. Technically it's Mr. Flint."

"...So I've got the wrong number then?"

"No. I am Maddox. Maddox Flint."

"...The sheet says Mr. Maddox."

"I'm sure it's a mistake."

"I'm sure it's not, we don't make mistakes."

"...Well, if you did get a wrong number, isn't that a mistake right there?"

"... Not necessarily."

"...What do you want?"

" Nothing. I'm not in the mood anymore. Forget the whole damn thing."

"...All right then." *Click*

If he'd had time to stop and think about it, he would of realized how utterly ridiculous that whole ordeal had been. But just then his house blew up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Damned ridiculous really. I mean c'mon, WWJD? What would Jesus do? It's not relevant. I much prefer the WTFWJD shirts that your son printed out. What the fuck would Jesus do? That's priceless."

Unless you've ever woken up in a room with two giant scaly chicken men, arguing over acronyms, as if they didn't even notice that they were in fact, giant scaly chicken men, then theres no way you could possibly know what Maddox felt at that moment. Such an event really inspires an emotion that's rather unique. Like . . .the asshole of emotions. It's not fun.

"Well, everyone=s entitled to their beliefs Carl. Don't be such a prick."

Well, the left ones name was Carl. Carl apparently was a prick.

"Why do you say that? Who says everyone=s entitled to their beliefs? Some beliefs are stupid. Lets say we let everyone determine whatever the hell they wanted to believe, and no matter what we let them keep on believing it."

"God, Carl, just shut up. It's just a necklace..."

"No. No, Buford, I wanna see what happens. I'm serious lets see. Lets punch it into the determinator."

With that, Carl pulled out a small gadget that looked kind of like a pair of scissors. Except gayer. Maddox couldn't help but notice, how flamboyantly gay the little contraption seemed. It had a way to it, which was definitely homosexual. This was very difficult for Maddox to understand, especially considering he didn't even know that objects could be gay, or if they were exactly what that would entail.

"Your such a jackass with that thing. Those things aren't even all that accurate."

Carl just ignored him and started pushing a series of buttons on the side of what would be the right blade, if the Determinator was in fact a pair of scissors.

"There done. Lets see."

A screen popped out from the left blade, and it showed two Giant Clams reclining in what appeared to be really fancy wicker chairs. The Determinator beeped and swizzled for a few more seconds, and started to speak.

"This is really stupid. I hate you guys. You=re both ridiculously stupid. I hope you both die. I seriously do. Your both so fucking pathetic, I'm not even kidding."

Neither Chicken Man seemed particularly taken aback. Carl didn't even look up from the control panel he was fiddling with when he asked: "Why? Because we want you to answer a question?"

"What? Is that what you want? I was just making conversation."

One of the two chicken men said (As to which one it was, nobody knows, it's been lost to history) "Just answer the question."

"Fine, fine. Here we go."

With that the two clams started moving around a bit.

"IF ALL PEOPLE WERE ALLOWED TO BELIEVE WHATEVER THEY WANTED TO, NO MATTER WHAT, YOU WOULD HEAR ALOT OF CONVERSATIONS LIKE THIS:

Person #1: Did you know that fish can breathe out of water?

Person #2: Actually, that's not true.

Person #1 Hey, I'm entitled to my beliefs!

Person #2 I am so sorry.

END SIMULATION"

The Determinator screen switched off, and folded up into sort of a jewelry box.
Carl put the box in his pocket, and then for a while neither Chicken-man said anything.

Finally Buford sort of cleared his throat and began to stammer... "Well...I guess that's true."

And you have to admit. It kind of was.

"Excuse me? Where is this? I mean here, where am I." Maddox asked.
He looked around the room, and he couldn't help but think, "This place looks like my Dad's living room." And he was right. Except for a few details, such as the giant squid hanging from the wooly mammoth skull, that itself was protruding from a leather sofa, (Maddox's dad had slightly less tasteful decor)
It did look pretty much the same.

"Oh, look at this. The uh-... the...what do you call em' again?" Maddox had been looking at the room and when he turned back around he couldn't remember who was Carl and who was Buford, so as to who said this is also lost to history.

"They're called Imashitheds I think that's what the Determinator said.."

"Oh, right. Imashithed."

Maddox could hear the Determinators distinctively digital laugh coming from one of their pockets.

"Yeah, anyway the Imashitheds awake. What should I do with it?"

"Well don't do anything to it. Go get Mr.Ashtear."

"Excuse me? Would either of you mind getting me some bandages? You see my house may have exploded-"

"About that..." One of the Chickenmen said (we'll say it was Buford. He was always less annoying)

Maddox went on.

"I might have cut myself. The house exploding and all. So if you have any sort of bandage I'd really appreciate it. Also some powdered donuts, if it's not too much trouble. Hell, even if it is."

"I'd love to help you, but you see the Infirmary and the mess hall are on two different sides of the base and-"

"The base?"

"Yes, and I'm really pretty tired, and I've got these bad knees, I really do. I'll tell ya what? If I see someone walking by, carrying some medical supplies and a tray of donuts, I'll stop them and I'll ask them, I really will, I'll say: Say, my friend back there could really use a bite to eat and something to cover some nasty lacerations he got. What? Oh his house exploded. Exploded. That's right, I said exploded. No, I'm not kidding! Jesus just give me a god damn donut! I AM NOT BEING PUSHY! You little bastard. If you don't hand over some adhesive bandages and a little bit of food for my dear, dear friend, who might I add, is lonely and a decrepit cancer ridden war hero, I'll blow your fucking head off!! Fine! I WARNED YOU!!"

With that the chicken man, drew a pistol from a holster that Maddox hadn't noticed and unable to find a suitable target, put the gun to his own head and murdered himself in cold blood. As he lay dying on the floor he gestured to Maddox to come closer. Maddox fell to his knees and put his ear up to the chicken mans mouth. Through his pain, and between the gasps and swallows the Chickenman uttered between clenched teeth these words that Maddox vowed to never forget: "Look what you made me do, you prick."

"I'm sorry, I just wanted some a little food and bandage."

Buford was visibly taken aback. He attempted to sit up in indignation, but the hole in his head only allowed him enough strength to kind of raise his head in sort of half defiance. "Oh your sorry. Well I guess that just makes everything peaches and fucking cream then, huh? Never mind death, forget about the gaping hole in my head, Old Sherlock Fucking Holmes here is really sorry about the whole thing. I guess theres no point in dying now, is there...I guess I'll go on a picnic. Maybe try on some hats. Oh wait, that's right they won't let me in the store because my brains are falling out of my head, on account of the hole and all."

Then in quite possibly the most sarcastic displays the universe has ever seen, Buford grabbed Maddox by the ears and gave him a big sloppy French kiss. When he pulled away he looked right into Maddox eyes and without so much the hint of insincerity said "Thanks a million Pal." And right as he was about to drop dead, he did to his credit, look into space and say, "I suppose I did get a little carried away..." And then he did drop dead. Maddox was silent for a few minutes until finally he got up and started for the door. "Guess I'll just get my own donuts and bandages then." History notes Maddox as kind of insensitive.


PART 2: Captain Mace Ashtear: Badass incarnate.

If you were to ask anyone at the Royal Stilted Rock Fighter Academy of West Michigan, graduating class of 1989, who the best person to have in a crisis was, the best person to have on your side in a fight, the best lover in a thousand mile radius , and the best soccer player was, they would invariably say, Mace Ashtear, Mace Ashtear, Mace Ashtear, and David Beckham. David Beckham is awesome. But then they'd say something along the lines of "Now get away from me you Nosey Nancy." Invariably.

So it was inevitable that when the Government needed someone to command it's experimental Killer Whale fleet, they turned to none other than, Mace Ashtear. When they realized that the president was only kidding about that, they reassigned him to an even more important position as Chief of Killing People All The Time For No Good reason, and Making Love To Countless Beautiful Woman. Mace snatched up that job without reading the fine print which read ": No Killing people all the time with or without good reason, or making love to countless beautiful woman involved."

It was actually just a job with a really misleading name that required him to slam his testicles in a drawer and say "God I hate this job!!!!@ (The second part wasn't actually required, but it seemed to be a popular phrase among the "Testi-crushers" as they were called.)

This project was also shut down, when federal inspectors were unable to see how having well trained fighters, and strategists, slam their gonads in a drawer, accomplished anything for national security.

Consequently around that time it was decreed that before any federal programs went into action, the intended head of said program was required to ask the President if he was kidding or not.

A Badass of Mace Ashtear=s quality never stays unemployed for very long. Soon he assigned to a combat unit, where he used his gigantic muscular frame and unmatched strategic genius to bravely rape and heroically pillage the lands of pretty much any Foreign country who's name ended in "-stan". He earned the nickname "Holy Shit!" because pretty much anyone who saw him in combat would yell "OH GOD PLEASE DON'T KILL ME!!!" But that doesn't really work as a nickname.

Anyway after years of loyal service to his country, he was struck down during a raid on a group of unruly grape farmers in Southern France. His last words were something to the effect of "I can't believe that after all the battles I've been in, I look away to admire the scenery for one second and a god damn grape farmer plugs me. That's really unfair. Seriously."
 You have to admit it, it kind of was. It was really colossally unfair.

Now history clearly states that Mace Ashtear was killed in action during the Battle of Rude Frenchmen, Even for Frenchmen. But clearly he's pretty healthy for a dead man, because he walked into the room where Maddox had been cradling a dying chicken thing ten seconds before.


PART 3: Canada, The future, and The Beginning of Existence.

Mace was sitting in his office looking over some official documents when Carl burst through his door and told him that the Imashithed had woken up and probably wanted to know where here was.

"All right then lets go down there." Mace said. "And for the last time The determinator was lying to you, it's not called an Imashithed. It=s a human. Like me."

"...I don't follow you, sir."

Mace wasn't the type to get exasperated. "Just take me to him and I'll give you a promotion." Mace said while loading his Futuristic Rifley type gun. (The weapons name has also been lost among the documents of history, but we can assume it was probably called a SnapperKiller. So that's what I'll call it)

"Sir, wouldn't that be my forty second promotion this week, sir?"

"...Yeah. What you don't wanna be a...What the hell are you now?"

"I believe you said I was a Super Fantastic Amazing Fourstar Grand High Duke First Class."

"Right well tack an exceptional between Fantastic and Amazing, and consider yourself promoted."

"Uhh... it already takes such a long time to say my rank..."

Mace feigned a look of nonchalant acceptance and took out his key to the janitor=s closet.

"Well I guess if you don't want the keys to the Super Fantastic Exceptional Amazing Fourstar Grand High Duke First Class washroom then, I suppose I could just throw it away..." Mace threw a glance towards his the trashcan in the corner in his office.

"NO! I want it!" Carl started to panic and shake around like he'd been zapped with a million volts. He really wanted that key.

"Well it's yours then-" He motioned as if to give the sacred key to Carl, but pulled away at the last second.

"As soon as you take me to where I want to go."

Without another word Carl began to run towards the room that looked like Maddox's fathers house.
But when they got there, all they found was Buford lying dead with a bullet hole the size of a guava fruit in his head.

"Oh, shit! He's gone." Carl was looking all over the room for any sign of the Imashithed.

Mace just calmly stood near the entrance with a thoughtful look on his face.

"And he killed Buford! Jesus! ...I think he punched his head... really hard... like with a gun!!" Carl said it as if he'd just been told Satan was coming over to anally render him with lawnmower. (What? That's a damn good analogy...)

"You suppose he was shot then?" Mace said it more to himself then to Carl.

Carl's eyes got huge, and his mouth shrunk to the size of a pinhole. "Oh god, you think so?"

Just then the automatic doors opened up and in walked Maddox, with a bandage on his arm, and a plate full of donuts. As soon as he saw the scene he realized he might be a tad screwed. On would think he would have dropped the donuts and started running like a madman, like any sane person would, but that's not what he did. Quite the opposite in fact.

He got shot.

Or almost anyway. The bullet knocked the tray right out of his hand and left a rather large hole in the wall behind him.

"You murdered him! You shot him in the head with your...gun...hmm..."

Carl couldn't help but notice that while Maddox had no weapon of any sort on him, Buford in fact did have one in his cold dead hand.

"Hmm..." Carl had been pretty sure about that one. History says that he then looked around the room and jumped out a window, but he probably just kind of slowly backed out of the room, and went and got a cup of coffee. Either way, there=s no record of him in the life of Maddox Flint after that.

Maddox turned towards Mace, and came face to torso with the greatest Soldier the world has ever known, and instead of being awestruck and saluting him, he brushed the donut crumbs out of his beard, and said: (And History will back me on this)

"Hey, where am I, what was that, and who the hell are you? I'm sorry but you see my house exploded, and I woke up here, where ever this is, and two god awful bird creatures were arguing about Jesus and Clams told them the answer, and then I asked that one if I could have some Donuts, and he shot himself in the head and called me a prick! And why are we in my dads reading room!?" After he got it all out he kind of slumped down on the couch with the wooly mammoth skull protruding from it. He just sat there and started rummaging through his pockets for a cigarette. Then he remembered that he didn't smoke, and he stopped. He just wanted General Patton=s recipe for Chili and this was all really too much for him.

Mace took a seat on the couch opposite from Maddox and put his feet up on the table knocking the books off and for a second, Maddox almost told him off for treating his dad's stuff that way, but stopped himself when he realized the bigness of his captor.

"Well, first of all my name is Mace Ashtear, and you've been brought here for no particular reason I can think of. We found you in some ancient wreck of a freezer, and those crackpot scientists decided, I'm guessing, that they hadn't revived anyone for a long time, so they gave you a bit of a jump."

Maddox seemed to be in shock. All he could do was blink and he just barely managed to say, "I died...in the explosion... I suppose."

Mace nodded non-chalantly and said "Right, and now your here."

Maddox seemed to come back to life when he heard that. "And where is here?"

Mace seemed to think that was a truly silly question and his body language gave it away.

"Well this is, Canada. Quebec more specifically."

Mace could have said Pluto, and Maddox couldn't possibly have been more surprised with the answer.

But it didn't matter because just then they were instantly transported to what appeared to be an airport except all the people, as it were, looked like Grim Reapers. (Even though they tend to get rather offended when you refer to them as that. Some people can be such nitpicks about titles)

However the first question out of Maddox's mouth was not "What the hell" or "Fucker what?" or anything even remotely like that. History rather fondly notes that he said "What year is it?" To which Mace Responded "It's not."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART 4: A room full of mutants and a sane psychotic.

"What do you mean it's not? How long have I been dead?" Maddox started picking at a scab on his elbow. It's a nasty habit, but because of his later heroic actions history tends to forgive him for it.

"I dunno, we picked you up..." Mace started saying some numbers in his head and then transferred hi thoughts to paper. Still unable to get the correct answer he pulled out a tiny calculator of sorts, and starting fiddling with it.

"It's not that important. Could you explain the part about it not being a year?  That's a bit of a chin scratcher, you have to admit." Maddox was trying to get his new friend to stop fiddling with the damn machine, and answer some relevant questions, but Mace just kept muttering something like "god damn imaginary numbers... I always screw up on the variables..."

Rather than waiting for Mace to finish his calculations like a good little girl, Maddox decided to explore his new surroundings.

He saw that not ten feet away from him there was a desk, with a Grim reaper thing minding a computer and a phone.

He rang the bell for service and the Grim reaper turned to him and told him in a remarkably pleasant, girlish voice to piss off.

"Excuse me? I was just wondering if you could tell me what year it is?" He asked a Grim Reaper what year it is. That's how badly he wanted to know. That=s desperate stuff right there.

She once again looked up from her work but this time she said "What'ya mean? It's not."

Maddox shook his head and attempted to start the whole conversation over again.

"No... I mean, I know that, but what does that mean? How can it not be a year anymore? That doesn't mean anything to me."

She looked as if he had two heads and one of the heads was attempting to eat the other one and the victim head kept screaming for help in Sanskrit. (Or any dead language really, it doesn't matter) History will note that it's a rather amazing look, that has yet to be repeated, and probably never will be. Even more remarkable when you consider that Maddox couldn't see her face at all, and still knew he was being looked at that way. You'll see that Maddox was involved in a lot of this kind of shit.

"Well, it's not a year. It's just not. Besides it's illegal."

"What do you mean illegal? You can't put laws on forces of nature. It's not logical!" Maddox wasn't visibly excited but he probably would have been throttling the attendant by now if she hadn't looked so much like Death incarnate.

"Well, they passed a law making time illegal .I admit nobody thought it would work, but it did. So I guess your not as smart as you think, are you, wiseguy?" She made it perfectly clear that the conversation was over, and with an air of superiority she returned to her work.

"TEN DAYS!"

Maddox turned around and saw that Mace had assembled a rather complex array of various machines and contraptions to solve the mind-twisting problem of how long Maddox had been dead.

"It's been ten days. I'm abso-fucking-lutely sure."

Maddox instead of being surprised again for the billionth time that day, just sighed and asked "It's only been ten days? How could so much have changed in only ten days?"

Mace shrugged. "I don't know. Things have been like this as long as I can remember. What changed?"

"I ... I don't know exactly. Everything. Who are those people?" He said pointing at the Grim Reapers.

Mace calmly smashed a bug on his shirt and started to examine his victim, and replied "They're Canadians."

Once again if Mace had taken a circus out of his hat, he could not possibly have been more surprised by that.

"Those are not Canadians. I know Canadians. Canadians are not like that."

"Well" Mace said "they're not regular Canadians if that's what you mean."

Finally things were starting to make a little sense. "Oh. Well where are they-"

"They're French Canadians."

Maddox was just going to give up and curl into a fetal position right there on the floor of the airport thing, but instead one of the French Canadian Grim Reapers, approached them and started to talk to them.

"Mace Ashtear? The council will see you now."

Mace put out the cigarette that he had been smoking and followed the Canadian into a room that said. "Council of the Awesome Cool Guys: All Omnipotent beings must wash hands."

Maddox unable to do anything else followed Mace into the room. What he saw in he room, was one of the most remarkable things, he had ever witnessed in his 29 years as a person. It was a gray room with ten guys that looked like different kinds of walruses sitting around a table. It was indeed remarkable for it's blandness. It was so remarkably unremarkable that Maddox just couldn't understand it.

"Who are you people?" Maddox said with absolutely no life in his voice. In fact he may very well have been dead at this point. History doesn't specify.

"They're aliens of sorts. Gods really. They run the show so to speak." Mace was now nibbling away at a ham sandwich, oblivious to the insanity.

"I don't understand. If they're aliens why do they speak English?"

"What's that? Speak up buddy? Ya got a question?" One of the Walruses had overheard them talking. He was the largest of the Walruses, and he was wearing a long yellow cape over a studded military uniform. A very distinguished looking Walrus.

"I was just wondering if your Aliens, like my companion here alluded to, then why do you speak English?" Maddox said in a very soft, "I don't want to be killed by space walruses" sort of voice.

"Why not?" That was the Walrus's reply. It was followed by a full 3 minutes of incredibly awkward silence.

"Well...I don't see any good reason, why you would speak a different planets language. I mean not everyone in the universe speaks English do they?

More awkward silence. "Yes. We all do."

Maddox shook his head violently and almost shouted at them. "But that doesn't make any sense?!"

The walrus just looked at him without changing his expression in the slightest. "...So what?"

Maddox was utterly stunned. He couldn't think of any good rebuttal to such broken but earnest logic. So what indeed? It didn't really matter.

The Walrus General now focused hi attention on Mace. "Captain Ashtear." He paused as if trying to make the anticipation grow. In fact that's exactly what he was doing. He could be such a dramatic bastard sometimes. The silence was like a box of glass elephants balanced on a buoy. It had to break.
But it just remained there. It was driving Maddox crazy. He was about to run off and maybe join a monastery, when The Walrus General finally said: "What's up?"

Mace looked up as if he hadn't even noticed that the General had been talking to him. "Not a lot."

"...Aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?"

Mace made a thoughtful face, and furrowed his brow as if that were a novel idea, the likes of which was very alien to him.

"I hadn't really planned on it."

The Walrus didn't falter, and decided to stop wasting his time on the Badass. "My name is Shock Walter Heero. Most people call me Shock. I run things around here."

"Canada?" That didn't exactly impress Maddox. (History notes that where Maddox comes from Canada was a bit of a joke. So much that a writer could say so in a book, with little or no worry of political repercussions. A strange place.)

"No. I mean this planet. Earth. I run it."

"What's going on? I was just sitting in my living room perusing magazines and my house exploded. Would someone please explain why my house would just go up in flames for no reason? I really don't understand it."

The Walrus on the right of Shock raised his head to enter the conversation.
"Did you notice anything odd?"

Maddox turned towards the newest instrument that he believed god had sent to punish him for some sin that he must have committed without realizing it.

". . .I assume you mean, other than the exploding house?" Maddox meant for his dry wit to have an effect on his audience of Walruses, by making them see the absurdity of the question. However then he realized he was talking to Canadian Walrus Gods.

"Yes, other than that."

Maddox thought about it. "No... Well, I did receive a rather strange telephone
call about ten seconds before." He had completely forgotten about that, but now it troubled him. What the hell was that call all about anyway.

As soon as they heard that, the entire room came alive. "What? What did they say? This is important. We need you to remember exactly what was said." Shock was leaning in very close to Maddox now, violating his personal space rather severely. Walruses can be such jerks.

"I-I don't really remember. I know he got my name wrong. He called me Mr. Maddox. I told him that he must have made a mistake and that my name is actually Maddox Flint, and that he had probably just mixed up his files or something but he just hung up after that."

They weren't even paying attention anymore. "Quick get the Determinator. Check it."

 The smallest oldest looking Walrus pulled out a small determinator, this one also looked like a pair of scissors but it gave off a feeling of absolute desperation.

They opened it up and instead of two clams on wicker chairs it had one giant frog taking a shower.

"Hello. What do you crazy guys want? Man, it's not another bet settler is it? You guys are nuts. Really I love ya though." This one seemed to actually like being a determinator as opposed to the other one who was a big fat jerk off.

"No, this is a lot more important. We need you tell us what that man's name is." The Small old walrus was pointing at Maddox.

"My name is Maddox, I already told y-"

"His name is Flint Maddox." The determinator had dropped it's lounge cat voice and was pointed right at Maddox.

"Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit, Oh shit." Shock seemed kind of upset about that.

"What? What's wrong? That's not my name! I swear it isn't."

They looked at him with obvious concern. "The determinator is never wrong."

All of the sudden Maddox had the most insane feeling of Deja vu. It was more than that though, it was as if his mind was trying to shut itself off. He heard a voice inside his head saying "Time to change now. C'mon Maddox. It's time for something else." He all the sudden felt so tired. So incredibly tired. But instead of simply giving in to the voice in his head, he willed himself back to consciousness. (This has been cited as one of the most important events in history, so remember it.)

"...What- what happened to my house? Ask the determinator what happened to my house. Why did it explode? I wanna know."

The decrepit wrinkly walrus looked at Shock for permission and got the nod to go ahead. "Ok. Determinator, Why did Flints house explode?"

The determinator did some quick calculations and after one or two impressive little zips and doodahs, a little piece of paper popped out of a slit in the side. The old Walrus took the data sheet and examined the results. After a minute or two of extremely intense studying he finally looked up and said. "Spontaneous combustion." None of the walruses seemed the least bit surprised at this. Maddox even thought he heard one of them say
 "Is that all?"

Maddox shouldn't really have been surprised by any of this, after meeting Canadian Grim Reapers you'd think you'd start believing pretty much anything, but Maddox wasn't having any of that shit.

"Spontaneous combustion?" He said

"Yes. I've seen it a thousand times." He seemed pretty sure.

History notes that all important events throughout time have started with spontaneous combustion. No examples will be given because it's true for every single one.

Spontaneous combustion is illogical. There=s no reason for it. Incidentally the country with the highest rate of death by spontaneous combustion is San Penaras a tiny island off the coast of Maine. It's so small. You probably didn't even know it existed. However this statistic may be slightly skewed on account of San Penaras limited knowledge in the area of medicine. If someone died and they didn't know how the doctors would just put "spontaneous combustion" on the death certificate. When someone would point out that the body was still intact and obviously had not combusted the doctor would shrug and say "Hey, what do I know? I'm just a doctor for Pete=s sake!" The person who pointed out the lack of combustion, spontaneous or otherwise, would generally back down after that.

Sometimes whole years would go by where the only thing anyone died of was spontaneous combustion. People were exploding left and right. It got a little ridiculous. God what a mess.

Shock pounded on the table with his flipper. "We'll worry about this later. Right now we have something we need taken care of. Mace we need you to go to Tijuana, we got a distress call from one of our bases down there, and we'd like you to check it out."

"That's pretty vague isn't it?" Maddox asked. He saw that two of the more important looking Walruses were discussing something rather important in the back of the room, but he couldn't hear what.

"Kay." Mace was seriously cool. He'd go anywhere anytime.

"You'll be backed up by Corporal Cole. He's waiting downstairs with further instructions and a fruit basket." Shock ended the meeting with some sort of ridiculous salute that involved ten different steps and a truly amazing amount of coordination for a Walrus.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 5: Corporal Razora Cole. Thief, Poet, Scrabble Enthusiast.

There=s a city inside of Mount Everest. That's right. It's been there since at least the 1980's. Plenty of people know about it. It's not really a secret; it just rarely comes up as a topic of conversation.

The City is called The Joyride. It was named after the first words that came into its founder=s head, after a particularly rowdy party at Hugh Grants house. It's founder was a man named Berke Wallace Cole, A rich yokel with nothing better to do than found cities inside mountains. Even though it's location and name are relatively obscure, it actually advanced rather fast, technologically, they discovered a way to turn rocks into a nearly infinite energy source, and they were able to harness the power of wood pulp to make some of the finest damn drinks the world ever tasted. (History notes that the reason for their rapid technological advancement probably had a lot to do with the fact that, being located in the center of a mountain no Communication with the outside world was possible. This meant that instead of watching the god damn TV, their scientists were actually working.)

The Joyride is also where the Determinators are manufactured.
But that doesn't become relevant until later.

Razora Cole, the great grandson of Berke Wallace Cole, was born in this city and raised as a rich yokel. The city was more or less cordoned off into two sections. The Rich Yokel section, where everybody wasted their money on Plasma TV's and fancy English butlers, and the Lazy Poor Bastards section, where everybody smelled like no good dirty hobos.

Razora was a pretty decent all around guy. He always remembered to tip his waiter. His elders told him not to steal so he never stole. They told him to look both ways before he crossed the street, so he looked both ways before he crossed the street. They told him not to kill, so he never killed. Except when he joined the army where they told him he had to kill, so he killed.

The point is he never went out of his way to screw anyone over, and pretty much did the things he was supposed to. The people of The Joyride trusted him. When elections for Supreme Dictator came around they voted him in.

History notes, that The Joyride was not a Democracy per say. It was a dictatorship but a rather laid back one. They controlled every aspect of your life but they tried not to be a big fat jerk about it. The laws in The Joyride weren=t particularly harsh, such as if you killed someone you did go to jail, but if you could write a thousand word essay, on why it was wrong to kill people and cite examples of things you could have done instead of cold-blooded murder they'd usually let you go.

As a society they could be pretty wishy-washy, but they had an underlying fierceness to them too. It was a damn strange combination that had to be evened out with lots and lots of drugs. Most of the poets and writers were constantly force fed highly concentrated narcotics to keep their stuff "Interesting". This practice made their legends and stories a damn kick to read, such as a popular moral for children of The Joyride called "Here=s a real Humdinger For Ya."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once there was a guy who lived in a place and liked to do a lot of stuff. One day he got tired of doing stuff, and decided that it was time to stop. So he did stop but than eventually he got bored of that and started again. Not to be outdone his next-door neighbor started doing the stuff he did at double pace. This started off a chain reaction, a revolution of double ambitions, where everyone kept trying to outdo everyone else. For disrupting the sacred balance of blandness, the guy was put on trial by a tribunal of flesh eating demon puppets. After 30000 years of deliberation, he was sentenced to the half-chamber, which is something so horrible I refuse to describe it here.

Five hundred bazillion years later, he was discovered by a tribe of laser monks. To everyone's surprise he was still alive and alert. They cleaned him up and brought him home to their Ultra Village where he was considered a great oracle. After many years of peaceful existence, several disasters overtook the village. First the Caladbolg, a monster that dwelled in the clouds and made it's meals of flying machines, invaded the earthlands for the first time in seventy million years. So great was the fear of the people that they offered up The Guy, as a sacrifice. But instead of appeasing the great monster, the offering angered him more. "After many years of loyal service to sons and fathers of this village, you would offer up your beloved oracle to a monster as terrible as I? You disgust me, and henceforth I take The Guy as my companion and together we will stomp this hamlet into a smoldering crater of bones!"

The Guy was instantaneously changed into a seven hundred foot Napalm Angel, and together Caladbolg and The Guy made short work of the country of Laser Monks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But that of course was what the country was like before Razora Cole became leader. When he came into power the first thing he tried to do was change the class system of the City, and mix up the two sections of town. The poor loved him for it, cause now they could wash their dirty clothes in the rich peoples pools.

His second decree was that all laws that had been passed before him were null and void because they had been written in Haiku and didn't make any god damn sense.

The upper class was pissed.


The wooden spoon shines
 I raise it to the heavens
Now see its power

And;

The liquor stays put
I empty it and enjoy
Driving laws be damned

Were the rules that they had lived their entire lives by. And Rich Yokels are notorious for being resistant to change. One of the more Respected Nobles, as the rich yokels referred to themselves, was a man named Dwight Chaeter. Dwight Chaeter, or Big Fat Jack Off, as the poor referred to him, was a middle level Rug salesman, who inherited a fortune when his father was mysteriously smothered by his pillow in the middle of the night. He was seen as kind of a leader of the Nobles, and whenever they had a pressing issue they would go to him and he'd speak on all of their behalf. Such as when they needed to organize an intervention for Lord Poop's cocaine dependency.

Sadly nobody really followed through on that one. Lord Poop is just such a ridiculous name. It's really hard to take him seriously.

The nobles had expressed to him their concern about the way; they felt Razora Cole was running the country into the ground. Then they realized the irony behind that statement considering the entire country was situated under a mountain, and they all had a good laugh.

But seriously they came up with a plan.



Once a month, or really when ever the hell he felt like it, the Supreme Dictator was required to hold open meetings where the people would express their concerns, and qualms about the way he'd been running things. The meetings were held inside the building known as the WormCaste, which was an eight story perfect sphere where all the important events in The Joyride were held. The supreme dictator sat in a comfy chair with wheels, while everyone else had to make do with the tiny plastic ones with the stupid little holes in the back.

All of the Noble conspirators sat behind Chaeter, and towards the end of the meeting when they were about to do the pledge of loyalty to the Supreme Dictator, Chaeter stood up and called for the forum.

"Supreme Dictator Razora, the Nobles have come to me with a concern. I said, that we should bring it to the smartest guy. Which is totally you." He turned to the crowd and addressed them. "Am I right? Is this guy a real knockout or what? C'mon give em' a hand!."

The audience clapped and stood up and just generally kissed the Dictators ass.

Razora couldn't help but agree with that. "Go on..."

Razora had fallen right into his trap. However Chaeter had to be extraordinarily careful with the next part of the plan. This was a very delicate operation, and it had to be performed with the mental caution of a heart surgeon. If this part didn't work, then he could just forget the whole thing.

Chaeter took a deep breath and continued. "Well the thing is some of the guys are kind of-GET HIM!!!!"

With that, the nobles all rushed the Dictator and tackled him to the ground, and one of them put a knife to his throat. Chaeter then took Razora's crown and quickly said the Supreme Dictators Oath. That made him the new Dictator, and there was nothing Razora could do about it.

He was forced to leave The Joyride. Chaeter knew the people loved him, and that as long as he was around they'd never consider him the true leader, so he banished him to the outside world, and decreed that if any former Supreme Dictators were seen skulking about these parts they'd be "Really sorry."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 5.5 Walking to the Garage. Getting a Weapon.

Mace and Maddox walked down the long corridor to the parking garage where Razora was waiting for them. Mace was checking his gun and just generally being awesome. "Your coming?"

Maddox was a rock. He didn't really care about anything anymore, it was all so confusing. He just followed Mace, because he really didn't know what else he could do.

Mace glanced over and saw that he probably wasn't gonna get much reaction out of him. "What's the problem? Your house exploded, big deal. You can have mine."

Maddox remained mostly motionless except now he lifted his head a little. "That's not really it. I mean that is it, but there's more." He didn't think it was possible to explain how he felt. In a matter of hours it seemed he'd gone from quietly perusing Life magazines to being sent on missions to Tijuana by Walruses. It was very disconcerting. "Do you know what it's-." He started to ask a question but sort of just stopped half way through.

Mace didn't even seem to notice. "Well, if your gonna be coming with us on this little expedition we'd best get you something to defend yourself with then." He pulled out a bag with the words "Free Peace" written on it in pink bubble letters. On the side of the bag there was a string that hung from the inside out, and Mace pulled it. There was a blinding flash of light and a sound like a shotgun being discharged into a crowd of people at a shouting contest.

When Maddox could see again, he saw that there was now a rack in front of them that contained seemingly every weapon known to mankind and even some that people only thought of for a second and then decided were too gruesome. From a short sword that you could probably barely kill a newborn with, to a giant three pronged bazooka with all sorts of switches and doodads that could probably shoot down a Space Station.

"Well, take your pick. Just try not to choose anything too retarded. You know the saying right? Don't bring a knife to a gunfight. Well it's true. Unless you=re me. I could probably get away with it." Mace himself grabbed what looked like a sawed off shotgun except the ends of it were covered with spikes. The kind of weapon that was built with the intent of making your opponent wet himself.

Maddox finally saw a set of a sword and a six-shooter that he liked.
"I've always dreamt about being a knight. With a sword and all. I know it's a bit silly...." Maddox remembered his wistful boyhood fantasies of slaying monsters and sword fighting with pirates for honor, and such.

Mace couldn't have possibly cared less. History notes that Mace was probably just bringing Maddox with him in hopes that he would get killed and he wouldn't have to deal with his whining anymore. "Just grab it and let's go then."

When they got to the car, Razora was their waiting for them, on the hood of it. "Hey, man. Get in."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 6: Death's A Nice Guy. Soldier Talk

"Man, I don't really know. Shock just said to go down there and see what=s up. It's probably nothing, but that's what were paid for right?" Razora didn't really know, why they were going to Tijuana either, but he seemed about as worried about it as Mace was.

Who wasn't worried at all.


Maddox thought that Mace and Razora, being soldiers, and apparently very good ones, would talk about strategy and such, or maybe trade old war stories and compare scars. He was kind of disappointed that they just more or less had the same meaningless conversations that he usually had on his own car trips.
"Hey, Mace?"

"Yeah, man?"

"...Would you have sex with a chicken to save your best friends life?"

Mace looked thoughtful and scratched his chin for a good minute.

"...Yeah, I guess I'd have to."

"Yeah." Razora agreed then he focused on driving and didn't say anything for a while but eventually he asked: "Well, afterwards would you have sex with your best friend, to save the chickens life?"

Mace didn't give it a moments thought this time. "No."

"Dude, you owe that chicken." Razora said.

Mace's face kind of switched to a look thoughtful acceptance.

"Yeah, I guess I kind of would."



That night, when they pulled over to rest for the night Maddox stepped on something that was laying on the bottom of the car. "What's this?" He asked and held it up to them so they could see.

"Oh there it is. My determinator." Razora took it and brushed it off, before he stuck it in his pocket.

"What are those things anyway?" Maddox knew that they were used to answer questions; he'd figured that much out himself, but other than that he was more or less in the dark about them. (The author wishes that he had been a bit smarter, so he wouldn't have to write this part, but I guess you can't change history.)

"Who is this guy?" Razora couldn't believe that this punk Maddox didn't even know what a determinator was. It's like if someone didn't know what a Television was. Utterly ridiculous, and whoever says it is that says it, deserves any insults that you hurl at them. Hell, if you stabbed them in the face, that'd probably even, be okay.

Mace was already in his sleeping bag looking up at the stars. "He's not from around here. His house exploded, as I'm sure you've heard him state at least a thousand times. He's an all right guy, though. A bit sentimental maybe, but alright none the less."

Razora just shrugged. "Whatever. Ok, a determinator is a little thing that grows in a country called of The Joyride. There little dudes that know everything. Nobody really knows why they're so wise, but I guess nobody really cares either cause nobodies ever really tried to figure it out."

"They grow? You mean they=re organic? Aren't they machines?"

"Well, maybe grows not exactly the right term for it. Part of them grows, but you have to mix it with some other things to make it work. I couldn't tell you what though. All I know is that the guy who invented them, got richer than god off it. Guy named Richard Viel." Razora was fishing around in the fruit basket that he'd been given by Shock, and finally pulled out a blue wriggling thing that looked like two bananas stuck together, except those bananas had just gotten the crap kicked out of them by cheerleaders and they were very embarrassed about it.

"What happened to him? I mean is this Viel guy still around?" Maddox was for some reason very curious about that name. It was very familiar.

"No. He's dead. Probably, I mean last anyone heard of him he was sick with more or less everything you can be sick with, so it's safe to assume that he's dead."

"Nobody checked? Rich guy like that?" Maddox asked a lot of questions. History says traditionally that at this point a shooting star shot overhead and all three men looked up at it and watched it go by without a word. .

History does tend to romanticize things a tad. Just a tad.

"No. He didn't really have any friends. He was more or less recluse, total hermit. Even if he's not dead, he's been more or less forgotten by now. I'd bet he's dead though."

Mace was still looking off into the sky, but apparently he'd been at least paying attention to the conversation. "Maybe not."

Razora sighed and rolled his eyes (little brat bastard...)  "Oh shut up, man. Not everyone can tell death to fuck off like you."

"I didn't tell him to fuck off." Mace said indignantly.

"Well, whatever."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You have to admit, being shot by a Frenchmen is a colossally unfair way to die,
When your a soldier as Badass as Mace Ashtear. You've won every battle you ever fought, killed more men than cancer and never so much as stopped for a breather the whole time, and the one time you lose your concentration for a second, you catch one in the lung. In France.

France.

It really was just so unfair.

And that's all he could think of, as he lie dying on a grape plantation in the French country side with a bullet lodged in his lung, unable to cry for help, or even see anymore, as his vision began to fade. "It's not fair. That's not right. Not fair." It was all he could think of. He wouldn't do it. He wasn't gonna die like that. It wasn't fair. And when death showed up he said so.

Death pulled up in a blue Chevy, about an hour after Mace stopped breathing. The door opened and out stepped a man wearing a black Trench coat and a cowboy hat. He took off the hat and wiped the sweat out of his hair, and shielded his eyes from the sun with his hand. He didn't exactly rush over to Maces side, but kind of surveyed the area looking for how many people he was gonna have to take care of that day, very non-chalantly, but he never stopped walking in Maces direction.

"Hey, Mace. Where's it hurt?" He kind of chuckled when Mace moved his hand away to show him the hole in his side.

"Bet that stung."

Mace kind of nodded. He had to admit Death didn't seem like a bad guy really.
"Alright lets go. I'll pull the car up and help you in." Death started to turn around but Mace spoke up: "No. I'm not going with you. Do you realize how I died? Who I am? That's not gonna cut it." Mace looked right at death, who by the way looks a lot Gregory Peck, and stood his ground.

And even death had to admit, that it was really colossally unfair for him to die
like that.

"I'll tell ya what Mace, you've kept me awful busy for a long time, and I appreciate that I really do." He put out his hand for Mace to grab and helped him to his feet.@ You=ve killed a lot of people. So I'm gonna do you a favor. I'll let you go back. But if I let you go back that=s it. You can only die once. You wanna live..." They started walking towards Deaths car.  "...Your gonna have to stay there for awhile." Death was pretty cool about it.

Mace thought about it for a second. Forever's a long time.

But it just wasn't fair for him to die there.

 "That's fine. I'm not going down like this. Send me back."

Death shrugged. "All right. . . Hey before you go, you wanna meet anybody? Some dead guy I mean."

So before Mace went back to earth, he had a little meeting with Jesus.

He was pretty cool. He said "Hey, did you guys ever find it weird that cowboys ride horses. I mean shouldn't they ride cows?"

It was kind of funny, but nothing to write home about.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What are you guys talking about?" Maddox wasn't really paying attention and only heard something about death.

"This guy" Razora gestured towards Mace "was killed in action and when death came to get him, he wouldn't go."

"He's a pretty nice guy actually. Kind of conceited." Mace said.

Maddox just went to sleep.

END OF ACT 1









---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART 7: Statistics. Thank God they got rid of the hobos.

The next day Maddox found himself sitting in a café in a city that Mace claimed was Chicago, but it looked more like a rather elaborate high rise suburb, with picket fences protecting absolutely everything. The complete lack of trash, homeless, or back alley abortionists took Maddox completely by surprise. However he decided that he had never been to Chicago anyway, and it was quite possible that all those movies about Gangs in the Windy City could have been making it up.

"So I got a call from Shock. He went on about something called a temporal Space distortion, blah blah blah, come home immediately, would not shut up..." Razora said while he pushed what was supposed to be a Grilled Cheese sandwich about his plate with his fork. The proprietor of the restaurant clearly had a unique view of what a Grilled Cheese sandwich was, not necessarily, wrong just different. And while he was certainly entitled to his view Razora felt he might also be entitled to a rather messy execution for serving this shit.

"Oh yeah? Wonder what that was all about... how was he other than that though?" Mace said.

"He was kind of moody."

At this point the waitress came around with their check and also to ask Razora to stop screaming every ten minutes that his Grilled cheese was "Alive! Alive and planning something! AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!" For while the first time it was possibly a genuine cry for help, the following ten times it was most assuredly some type of sarcasm. Razora replied that if someone would come over and kill the nefarious sandwich, he wouldn't have to resort to yelling.

Maddox looked at his change, and realized that they had shortchanged him by four cents. "Excuse me, my meal cost me10.96, and I gave you eleven and I never got the change...  It's not really a big deal, I just thought maybe..."

The waitress gave a sigh that said she would rather be anywhere else but haggling over chump change, and looked over at Mace. "Would you please tell your friend that I've had a long day and I'm not in the mood for his sarcasm."

"No, I'm afraid we don't speak the same language." Mace said.

"I wasn't being sarcastic..."

"Oh yeah!! Well how the hell am I supposed to give you four cents?"

"Well maybe if you just grabbed some pennies..."
"Oh. Pennies, of course. And where exactly am I supposed to acquire these pennies? Huh? Tell me that one hotshot?"

Maddox darted his eyes around the table to see she was serious, seeing not a single crack of even the smallest smile on anyone face around the entire room, he sort of slowly replied "From... the... cash register?"

The waitress shot herself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Penny=s have always caused more trouble than they=re worth. You can't spend them, and there hardly big enough to hold down a piece of paper, so one day when someone said, "Hey, lets get rid of these pennies." everyone agreed and the man was hailed as a hero. The problem was finding a way to get rid of them. First they tried melting them down, but this proved far too easy and the government just wouldn't have it. They suggested that people collect all the pennies and build a huge statue of Saint Agnes. But nobody could remember what she looked like, so that too had to be abandoned.

 Finally everyone grew frustrated with the whole idea and the guy who came up with it, was stripped of his hero status and sentenced to be stoned to death. Right before the first stone was cast by he without sin, who amazingly it turns out had been in Vermont all this time, the man who's name incidentally was Peter Fingerly, in a last ditch effort to save his life, came up with the following idea, "We all hate poor people right?" Peter said. The crowd temporarily settled down and agreed with this. "Well, what if we somehow find a way to get rid of the pennies and poor people at the same time? Imagine how much better everything would be!" The crowd murmured about for a bit and decided they quite liked this new idea, and he was again hailed as a hero. However someone in the crowd pointed out that it was a mighty shame to get everyone together for a stoning and then not do it. Everyone agreed that this was indeed quite a shame so they killed him anyway, but afterwards they felt really bad about it.

Armed with this new purpose of eliminating poverty, and reducing inflation at
the same time they set out with a renewed enthusiasm for the project. Realizing that they really had no idea where to start, having killed their idea man before he had elaborated on his plan, they again slipped into a funk. Finally some suggested that since they couldn’t= figure out a decent way to kill the poor, they might as well just hide them away, somewhere. Then somebody else suggested that they hide them away in houses made of pennies and they were on their way.

The penny houses were built and the impoverished people of the city moved in to them, and for a while everyone was happy. However due to a slight miscalculation on the designers part (copper is one of the most heat conductive materials on earth) all the poor people were cooked in their homes and died. The smell and resulting contamination of the air and water eventually killed everyone else in the city as well. Scholars have often cited this event as conclusive evidence that you really can't get rid of a penny, at least not without a plague breaking out. Such Scholars are often told to shut up and go back home as nobody invited them to the party anyway.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bah, I probably would've shot her eventually anyway." Razora and Mace had left the restaurant very quietly after the whole incident and left Maddox to deal with it. Maddox had used the old "Look behind you it's a shark!!!" trick
and escaped an almost certain $30 fine.

"You can't just shoot anyone you want, Raz. You should at least check the list of approved justifiable murder. I don't think Waitresses are on it." Mace was looking for the car that they had been traveling in, but he wasn't having any luck, so he shrugged and stole a black Volvo.

"I'm sure they're on there somewhere. Ice Cream men are."

"No, Raz, they're not. You put that there. Scribbling "Ice Cream men" on the bottom of the list in magic marker after mistaking an Ice Cream Man convention for an enemy encampment and slaughtering them, does not make it officially ok to murder ice cream men." Finally the car started and after making a full 180 degree turn, they started again towards Tijuana, passing their own car about ten yards down the road. While this struck them all as funny it never occurred to any of them to actually switch cars.

Maddox had actually been quite enjoying the trip up to this point but as they drew closer to their actual destination, the rather unpleasant reality that he would soon be facing down a battalion of probably ill-dispositioned soldiers.
(History notes that while this was a correct assumption for the most part, it's still unfair as some of the men were actually real good guys, who just happened to like shooting people in the face. There are worse habits a person can have.)

"You know it occurs to me, that there are only three of us..." Maddox paused hoping that the rest of his statement would be obvious.

Razora turned around and gave him a funny look, "Just now?"

Even Mace who very rarely joined conversations that he didn't start chimed in. "Yeah, learn to count. That's a rather impressive display of stupidity. You realize that you point the barrel of your gun away from yourself right?"

Maddox shook his head. "No, no. I mean there=s only three of us and were going to storm a base full of god knows how many soldiers."

"Don't hurt yourself trying to count them. I can tell you right now there=s way more than three." Razora said.

"No! God dammit, I mean, were hopelessly outnumbered aren't we?"

All the sudden Razora=s eyes lit up with understanding. "Ah yes. That's true."

The two soldiers seemed to think that the conversation was over and rather relieved to be done with it, and the pause dragged on for a seemingly endless moment.

"Well... Can we win?" Maddox said.

Razora turned towards Maddox, Determined to stick out this conversation to the end with having to murder his guest in cold blood.

"Statistically, no."

"What do you mean? What are the statistics of it."

"Well, I believe it's something like... a 1% chance of victory. Maybe a little more."

Another pause. Maddox was getting pretty good at dramatic pauses and he was the kind of guy that stuck to what he was good at.

"Well, then were.... screwed... aren=t we?"

Razora made a thoughtful face, (It involves wrinkling your chin. Why this is considered thoughtful is a mystery.)

"Statistically, no."

"You keep saying that!" Maddox said.

"Yeah, well it's true" Razora was determined to keep his cool. Being Cool is important.

"Well you don't seem very worried!!" Maddox wasn't cool. This had been made quite apparent to him in High School.

"Mission accomplished@ Thought Razora. "That's because I'm not."

"Well why the fuck not?"
How miserably Maddox had failed at being hip.

Here was Razora's big moment, if he could deliver this line right, it would assure his status as ultimately cool, approaching the heights of awesome.

"Because Statistics are a load of cow shit!"

Oooh. Razora was as cool as a naked Eskimo's pet penguin Frosty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a famous paper written by a Famous Economist named Dick Lesbian (An incredibly unfortunate name...) Entitled "Statistics, Metaphors and Cliché=s. How to Sell a Man The Ring On His Finger" I'll reprint it here, with permission from the old lady across the street, who said she couldn't care less.

There=s an introduction and such but it's crap. So we'll just skip to the important part...


#1Introduction to Statistical Lying.

Statistics is the art of taking data that is undeniably true and lying with it. For example, if you wanted to figure out what the average number of legs for human beings were, you would have to factor in all the people who have only one leg, half a leg, and so forth. Eventually the statistics would tell you that the average person has 1.29 legs.  Despite the overwhelming majority of people that you've seen who clearly have two legs, the average person apparently spend a lot of time hopping in circles.

Say you find yourself on trial for murdering an old woman for her wheelchair in a crowded area. Calmly explain that while you did indeed senselessly club that one old lady to death, there were more than six hundred people in the area that you didn't club to death. You killed less than 1% of the people in that area. 1% isn't very much. Any sane Jury will be able to see that the amount of people you didn't kill greatly outweighs the amount of people you did kill, and you'll get off with a warning and maybe a small fine.

#2 Clichés and Metaphors.

A fool and his money are soon part. This goes right in hand with "It's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven." The eye of the needle is actually just what they used to call the gates that led into the city in the ancient Middle East, which a camel, with some difficulty, could squeeze through. Fortunately not many people know that, and certain guilt ridden terminally ill Christian billionaires will in fact give you all their money if you repeat that saying enough times. Some people say it's wrong to steal from the terminally ill, but as you know, 'a tooth for a tooth an eye for an eye."  After I say that they usually something along the lines of "That doesn't make any sense!@ But that's the cat calling the kettle black.





If you want to kill a cat legally change your name to Curiosity...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It should be noted that Dr. Lesbian went mad halfway through writing this paper. Still it's a widely read and heavily cited essay, which probably explains why lawyers on a whole are a bunch of soul sucking bastards.


PART 8: Pre-mission Bearology.


The car pulled into a lot 40 yards from their intended target. Razora explained that while the mission was indeed one of utmost importance and absolutely vital to global security, it could wait until morning. AThose rebels aren=t going anywhere. They walled themselves up in there to keep guys like us out, and I=m not all that thrilled about going over there anyway, so I might as well be rested up when I do it.@

Mace had wandered over towards a hill with a turret situated on top of it. The previous unit that had been assigned to watch over the area had left in quite a hurry, and appeared to have neglected their duties to disassemble their equipment. Mace climbed into the gunner seat, and relaxed. It should be noted that Mace=s idea of relaxation was to take potshot=s at harmless woodland animals, and later report himself to the local wildlife protection authorities.

Maddox had taken to familiarizing himself with Razora=s determinator, and had been punching in whatever words came to mind, and he had discovered that while the world he was from and the one he was currently in certainly had their fair share of differences, most of the fundamental=s were the same. The biggest difference he had found so far was that in this world the word AMaroon@ actually referred to an infamous style of gangster rapping that involved cloning yourself into an unstoppable force capable of taking on any standing army in the world and then promptly getting shot in a car by a rival gangster. The clones, upset by the loss of their leader, generally faded from the public eye, many of them having taken up a somewhat unhealthy interest in lobster fishing.

Maddox wondered how many times this had actually happened, and eventually came to the conclusion that it must be a common occurrence for them to have specific word for it.
Still ...maroon....


On a whim he punched in the word bear, and the first result was ABad Pets.@ While Maddox agreed this was probably true, he did think it was a little odd, that this would be the initial result as opposed to AWild Animal@ or even AMammal@. He asked the machine to elaborate, and so it did.: (Note: the man who contributed this bit to the information chains knew very little of English people, specifically the way in which the speak. The result is something that reads a bit like a Monty Python skit. You=ve been warned.)

AKodiak Tea Time, the classic and often cited story of a Bear=s true nature. Considered to be the definitive work on Bear=s. Would you like to hear it?@

AYeah, that=d be great.@ Maddox said.

The determinator made some impressive whirs and whistles and began to shoot steam out of it=s sides. After thirty or so rounds of this manner of behavior it stopped and said AAll right then. Here it is, Kodiak Tea Time@

James Stuffnyokel sat in his good friend Charles=s chair by the fireplace quietly sipping his tea and reflecting on the days events, as all proper upper class English gentleman, are required to by law. James was having trouble really getting into his thoughts tonight, something about the room unnerved him. He had stayed for tea at Charles=s house countless times and had always found the place to be quite comfortable. He couldn=t quite put his finger on it. The ceiling fan had a bit of a wobble to it, but that was hardly unnerving. That couldn=t be it. If he had to guess though. He=d probably say it was 12 foot Kodiak bear that was currently parading through the room knocking thing=s over and showing absolutely no respect for other peoples property. AYes, that must be it.@ James thought.

Charles returned from the kitchen carrying a tray of crumpets and all that crap that Limeys eat with their tea. He passed by the rampaging beast without so much as a second glance, sat down in the chair opposite of James and began to eat a scone. The Kodiak snatched it away from him did something unspeakably disgusting with it, and began to mash it into Charles forehead. Charles calmly chose another scone and began to eat that one instead, not even bothering to wipe the dripping sticky mess away from his brow.

ALovely weather we=ve been >avin, eh ol= bean?@ Charles said.

AAh...yeeesss...@ James said, slowly shifting his eyes from Charles to the bear and back again. The bear, it appeared, had taken a romantic interest in Charles=s television set, and was attempting to make a smaller bear with it. However this attempt proved to be futile, as the television set wasn=t quite ready for the responsibility of children at this point in her life. The bear understood perfectly well, and threw the set out the window.

AAh, Charles...@ James paused, trying to find the most delicate way of putting this.

AWhy is there a bear... umm ...well I don=t mean to be tactless and I realize that it=s really none of business but..@ James paused again. He really disliked confrontation, because you see he was English. Any red blooded American knows that English people are complete pansies. Anyway James finally did get over his culturally inherited wussiness and finally was able to convince himself to just be a man and do it.

AThere does seem to be a bear rampaging through your... er... downstairs.@ James breathed a heavy sigh of relief, eternally grateful to have gotten that off his chest.
Charles craned his head around James to get a look at the bear that had now gotten interested in his bookshelf, specifically he was interested in smashing it in half.

AYes. Just showed up one day, he did. He was all dressed up as the mailman, sweet talked his way past the missus. When he got into the kitchen he threw off his disguise and he=s been trouncing about like he owned the place ever sense.

AThat=s terrible!@ James said.

AOh well now.@ Charles said AIt=s not all bad really.@

ANot all bad?@ James asked (Yelled really) AHe=s tearing your house to ribbons! It=s a bloody miracle that your even alive! Bears eat people ! What possible good can come from that!!?@

AWell@ Charles began AYou know the Finsterburgs? Live across the way? Anyway, dreadful people, always complaining about my bushes going over into there property. Well, they came over here to complain about all the noise the bears been making. As soon as they opened the door, the bear sort of punched their heads off.@

AJesus!@ James yelled. After quite a bit of that sort of thing, James finally calmed down. All of the sudden his eyes went deadly serious, a dreadful thought having dawned upon him.

AWhere=s Milly?@ James hadn=t seen Charles=s wife during the entire time he=d been there.

AAh...yes...Milly well, funny thing.. Ah she was umm... well that is to say she=s... passed on.. Well.. uh...yes.@ Charles said.

James leaned in closely to Charles and looked him right in the eye. AWhat happened to her.@ His eyes were bulging and his face had turned bright red. AWhat the hell happened to your wife!!@

ANothing. Natural causes@ He said Aeaten by the bear@ He murmured under his breath.

AEATEN?! HARDLY BLOODY NATURAL CAUSES IS IT?@ James screamed.

AHey, It=s perfectly natural for a bear to eat a human!@ Charles screamed back.

AHe ate her man! That bear ate your Milly! HE ATE HER!!@ They were nose to nose now.

AWell at first, yeah. But afterwards he was just trying to express his love for her, I=m sure.@

AAAAAGGHH!!!@ James screamed and picked up the poker near the fireplace. He went after the bear intending to end it himself. The bear noticed him but just barely (Pun not exactly intended but also could have been avoided rather easily) He calmly cleaved James in half with a swipe of his razor sharp claw, and began to consume him. Unfortunately for the bear, he choked James=s somewhat larger than average Ethics gland, and died as well.



Maddox=s initial reaction was to file this under things that made his own world and this one different. It seemed to be a prime example of how nothing that happened here ever made the slightest bit of sense. After turning that over in his head for a while, he realized that it was actually the most familiar thing he=d encountered in this world so far, and that the two places maybe weren=t that much different after all.    





PART 9: The Important critic pandering emotional stuff.





 Blah blah blah. Male bonding, pre-battle shakes, questioning of the meaningless of battle and the mindless wholesale destruction of warfare, etc, etc.

Let’s just skip all that and skip forward to the mission itself, shall we? Ok… Let’s see… Right here.

 
PART 10: The ridiculously violent bit.

Mace led the way towards the back entrance of the fort, directing the other two away from the guard towers lights. Maddox followed very closely, fearing to even stray the tiniest bit. Mace stopped at a corner near a window and motioned for the other two to stop as well. He pointed towards the other side of the wall and made a hand signal to Razora.  “Guards at 10 and 12.” Razora nodded and made his way towards the other side. After about ten steps Mace called out to him in a whisper “Wait. Better take the tranquilizer.” And threw him a black weapon with a giant handle and a curiously small barrel. “Right, good thinking.”

Maddox didn’t say anything but he was immensely relieved. He didn’t really want to have anything to do with anybody being killed, and he was pleased to see that his companions seemed to be adopting a non-lethal strategy.

He listened hard, trying to make out how Razora was doing, but didn’t hear the gun go off. All he heard was a dreadful whacking noise followed by a thump as if something was falling followed by 12 or 13 more whacking noises.

After three minutes or so Razora returned. He handed the gun back to Mace, and whispered something in his ear, which caused them both to break out in a fit of uncontrollable laughter.  “Now that’s irony right there.” Mace said.

Maddox stood dumbfounded, unable to see what could possibly be funny about such a serious situation.  He noticed that the tranquilizer gun was covered with scuffmarks and a little dented as if Razora had been banging it against something but didn’t think much of it.

And so they went looking the building over for cracks or doors or some way in, until they came to a steel rectangle that was clearly different from the surrounding material. This was a door. A door is a piece of solid matter that separates things from one another. The have a wide variety of uses, from getting your fingers caught in them to locking people that have been deemed dangerous to society in a stone room for the rest of their lives. But mostly they were just used to keep poor people from getting any of your excess material wealth.

Having come to the door they did what was natural for people in their situation to do. They blew it down with a rocket launcher.  Any illusions that Maddox had been harboring about this being a stealthy, “not killing people” type of mission were shattered as Razora and Mace, turned from being simply anti-social and self centered, to blood thirsty homicidal maniacs. His eyes rested on a frightened soldier wearing a blue and black uniform and a black helmet. He then watched as Mace blew a hole the size of a tomato in the soldier’s chest. He thought of what it must feel like to have such a substantial part of you spray out the back of your body so suddenly.  He thought about asking him, but decided it would be sort of tactless of him. And there was a chance he himself would end up with a matching hole, were he to venture out into the fray at this point to ask anyway. He decided that at the rate people were blowing holes in each other all over the world, he’d have plenty more chances to ask that question.

And so on. When the smoke cleared, that is to say when Mace stopped shooting people, there were seven blue uniformed young men sprawled out on the floor with small but crucial pieces of their bodies splattered against something or other. It didn’t really matter what the crucial bit of them was now splattered on, only that it no longer was attached to them.

DEUS EX MACHINA   

In the beginning of this book I related to you some legends of how the world began. None of these are true. I can tell you exactly how the world began.

For this story we needn’t go back 50 billion years. Nor do we have to stretch back to a seven-day period of unmatched productivity. In fact we don’t have to go back any significant amount of time at all. The universe began, or at least the building blocks that would later create the universe, some 1969 years after a carpenter was nailed to a cross. And the material came from the bladder of a Mr. Neil Armstrong.

 The DNA that Armstrong squirted into space, through his urine, floated around for centuries. Seeing as that it didn’t really have a lot else to do, it began to be affected by the materials it would come in contact with every so often, a piece of star dust here, a neutrino there. Eventually all other living things died off, and it was the only organic material left in a desolate blank nothingy open space. And as the universe started up again as it tends to do, it used this Spaceman pee, as a starting point.

The universe having, only a limited amount of material to work with, always does the same things over and over again. It explodes into being, it hangs out for a while, life starts to grow in it, John Lennon is born, a 10th grade kid gets the shit kicked out of him for daring to speak with an impediment, and eventually when it runs out of things to do, the universe will collapse back on itself. But it always starts with Neil Armstrong’s Urine.

But first someone has to dream it. That was me. I am the creator of this universe, I thought it up, I wrote it down on paper I control everything that happens in it.
Example:

The three men had left the scene of bloodshed that they had just created and entered a room where there was a meeting between the leaders of the rebels. Before Mace and Razora could open fire, a solid gold elephant fell through the ceiling and crushed them all. Mace declared the mission accomplished and the three of them decided to go AWOL.

I am there god. I can kill them, make them rich, and have them perform summersaults. I can turn them into homicidal maniacs, or rain down solid gold African animals on them. I can make them wonder what kind of a loving god would subject them to such torture, and then erase any notion of that thought from their mind. I am a god that would bring terror and destruction to my creations despite how much I love them., and I doubt I’m really all that much different from any other god.
Watch this.


Bruce Tenfold sat on his boat. He listened to a song and pretended in his head that he had written it and that his band would perform it in front of thousands of screaming fans, every night. I appear in the boat with him. Normally he would be startled by such an appearance but in order to save time, I make him the accepting type. I make him already know exactly why I’m here and who I am. I tell him that he can wish for any three things he wants, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I already know what the wished are going to be, and no good can come from any of them. That if he wishes for what he will wish for, he’s going to be impaled by a swordfish. “But there isn’t a sword fish for miles.” He says. I let him think what he will. Even I can’t control what my creations will think, only what they will do and what will happen to them. Also I know that even if he decides it’s a bad idea to wish for anything he’s still going to be impaled, so to save time I just make a sword fish jump out of the water and stab him through the chest That’s the way it’ always had to be.

So, I think that any loving god is the same way. Nobody can accuse me of not loving the world I’ve created here.  In the world I live in they can’t because they don’t know this book exists yet, and in the world I’ve created I won’t let them. As the saying says, we always kill the ones we love. Or something like that.



PART 8: Charlie Dark Is A Dock Fisherman Who Writes Books And Drinks A Lot.

Charlie Dark saw a man sitting in a boat, talking to another man who had just appeared a few moments ago. The man who had just appeared was waving his arms about in a lazy manner and seemed to be explaining something. When he’d finished a swordfish jumped out of the water and stabbed the first man in the chest.

So Charlie decided it was time to call it a day and try and sober up for the next day, which he also intended to spend fishing and drinking. He was supposed to be working on a book he had started about the significance of a solid gold elephant to a group of Africans who lived in an undiscovered village, but usually he just stared at the blank pages he would have to fill in order to finish such a story, and decided that the day would be better spent getting drunk and going fishing.

Charlie mostly wrote books that were based in Africa, despite knowing almost nothing about it. Here’s a bit what Charlie had written on Africa:

“Africa is a continent where a lot of black people live. A lot of them spend their lives killing each other with guns and disease. An even greater amount of them hardly get what you would call a life in the first place. They’re born into a world where there isn’t enough for them to eat, despite the warehouses of surplus food across the ocean.

If that doesn’t get you, it’s also a land filled with big animals that want to eat you. In short it’s the most god-forsaken place on earth. Anyone that lives in Africa needs to be shipped out of there immediately, and brought somewhere a bit less shitty.

The problem is they may not go for that, on account of what happened last time outsiders came knocking, with boats.

There are of course some who prosper in Africa, but most of these people are white. White people have always been able to prosper pretty much anywhere, largely due to the fact that a white person is the most dangerous, savage, heartless beast on earth. Somehow they’ve throughout history been able to convince other races of their natural superiority and use that belief to dominate everyone else. It’s kind of amazing actually.

Despite their susceptibility to sunburn, their in-ability to stop killing each other, and the fact that they’re grossly outnumbered, they’ve always managed to stay on top.

It may be the fact that Europe was such a crowded place, with all these people living so close to each other, fighting for what little farmable soil there was in order to survive. There were bound to be disagreements here and there.

White people had to fight all the time just to survive. If it wasn’t a rival European trying to stick you with a piece of metal, it was someone from the church trying to burn you. It was a tough life, and they’ve been taking it out on everyone else ever since. Like a kid that was born in the streets, they’ve been raised to believe that it’s either kill or be killed.

Europe is also the most Godforsaken place on Earth. It’s got miserable weather and lots of white people.

After a while some of the Europeans realized that they where they lived sucked, so they decided to go somewhere that didn’t suck quite so much. When they got there, they found out that there were already people there. Despite the native peoples willingness to share the land peacefully, the white people decided to slaughter the pesky natives. And to top it off they called them Indians, even though they knew full well they didn’t come from India.

Eventually the white people turned the new land into a prosperous country, by having black people do the hard work, and tricking some Asians into building them a railroad. Eventually the white people in this place dropped a large piece of metal that made a huge explosion in one of the countries that the Asians came from. Then just for kicks they dropped another one. This ended a war, which had involved lots of white people killing lots of other white people, while Asians killed Asians. Also White people killed Asians, and vice-versa.

Basically the entire world is a god-forsaken place, and everyone should move somewhere else.”




PART 9:
CHARLIE DARK SHARES A ROOM WITH THE WORST POET OF ALL TIME

Charlie walked into his apartment and threw himself onto his couch. He sat and thought as he always does about what a great guy he used to be, and what a miserable old bastard he was now. The difference between his two selves was much bigger in his mind than the outside world could see.

In his mind the him of 4 years ago, was a bold, take charge kind of guy, the sort of dude that walks into a room and everybody perks up to watch. He had been equipped with a razor sharp wit. Generally well liked with easy good looks.

The him now was the sort of guy that kept quiet and felt awkward around strangers. He tried to think of clever things to say but fell flat when he opened his mouth to share. Nobody noticed him in a crowd because there was nothing special to be noticed, and despite his overwhelming desire to be the center of attention and grab the spotlight he hid from any recognition. Generally people just thought he was weird, and he had a rough oddly proportioned face.

Most of this was in his head. He had an atmosphere of a man who had lost all of his possessions in a fire, and was just wandering aimlessly hoping that they would all magically reappear.

He had trouble meeting any writing deadlines. With all that self-pitying he had to squeeze in a day, he barely had time for anything else.

In fact he was so wrapped up in it right now, that he hadn’t noticed that he was sitting on his roommates face.

And of course the introduction:

His roommate was a poet named Billy Viel. He was one of those rare people that had gotten through life almost completely by luck. His lack of any real skills should’ve doomed him to a life of poverty stricken obscurity but actually he had done quite well for himself. He owned a restaurant on the other side of the city that he had yet to actually see for himself, and he had inherited a bit of money from his father. Well it would be a bit of money if you were a rich yokel. In actuality it was what is often referred to as a shit load. To top it off he got paid ridiculous amounts of money to produce some of the worst poetry ever conceived by man.

People had grown tired of all the beautiful poetry that these starving artists were cranking out year after year. It was always the same old creative prose, and abstract ideas expressed through enchanting words. When Billy published his masterwork “I Peed In My Neighbors Pool” people went wild for it. It was refreshing to see someone who didn’t really give a damn, or for that matter have any talent to speak of, try his hand at expressing himself lyrically. Some people got together and decided that this was such terrible poetry that in fact it was good.

In reality it was just really bad.

Anyway…

“Hello Charlie.” Billy said directly into the butt cheeks of his roommate. Normally this isn’t how Billy greets people but given their present situation it was necessary.

Charlie rolled off and let Billy sit up. “Hey Billy. Whatcha’ up to?” Charlie asked.
“Well not a lot really. I was writing a poem but I’m probably just gonna send it off half finished. I lost my fucking pen.”

Charlie took a swig of vodka from the bottle he kept at his side. After a good deal of face making and forced swallowing he asked, “What’s it called?”.

“Ahh…Tomato.” Billy said, with a shrug. A lot of the time he didn’t even name his poems, but if someone asked what it was called he would just make something up off the top of his head.

Strangely enough he had taken up poetry as a way to relieve stress, after his father was crushed into an oblivious coma by a solid gold elephant.


How would you feel if I told you that Billy’s father’s accident was ironic and then I didn’t explain how?  The set of circumstances that was cause injury by solid gold elephant is nothing compared to what makes it makes it ironic.
 
But all of that is just goose shit compared to the staggering coincidence that I’m about to tie this all together with. Billy’s father had amassed the fortune that Billy inherited, by the sheer dumb luck of being the first man to stumble upon the correct way to assemble a determinator.  His name was Dr. Richard Viel. He was six feet tall and he weighed 210 pounds.

Richard Viel wasn’t a genius by any stretch of the imagination, he was just a guy who had gotten lost in a seemingly uninhabited cavern and tried to make a sandwich with what materials he had to work with.

Instead of a sandwich, he ended up with the world’s most efficient problem solving machine, which also happened to know everything that could possibly be known.

Shit dumb luck. Just because it hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Billy stood up, brushed pot ash off his pants and shirt and tossed what remained of the thick clumsy joint that he had rolled out of a paper napkin behind the couch, killing untold billions of germs and lower life forms. The marijuana was still affecting him somewhat but not enough to make a noticeable difference in how he appeared to the outside world. “This one’s a real piece of shit, this poem. It’s really awful.” Billy said proudly. Billy Viel was between 5’10 and 6’2 depending on which police report you choose to believe.

Charlie murmured feint congratulations but was really thinking about a movie he had seen once where the hero had done a really neat trick with his gun. First he had shot a mobster in the chest. Then without even looking away he had caught the casing that had contained the bullet after it came out the other end of the gun.

A man did a study once where he brought a class of 2nd graders into an auditorium, where he had set up two giant Television sets on either side. As he talked to them about the importance of clean living, or whatever it was, he had the cameras set up so that everything he did would show up on the Television sets as well. They had the choice of either watching him directly or watching his image on the TV. Those who watched him and those who watched the TVs were of about even number.

The man had arranged for someone to come in and assault him halfway into the talk, and when the assault came all of the children shifted their focus to the television sets.

As soon as something interesting happened they acted as if it was all happening on TV instead of ten feet in front of them.

It all works along the same principle of the solid gold elephant.


Part 10: A mild sociopath.
Billy and Charlie sat for sometime in that silence that close friends can maintain for centuries, if nothing particularly interesting occurs. Through the invention of TV, interaction between even the closest friends has been rendered obsolete. Good riddance. Unfortunately for my weary typing fingers this particular moment Charlie had something to say.


“Once along time ago, I knew this kid named Phil. His last name escapes me now, but that’s not important anyway, what is important is what happened between me and him. We’re talking first grade by the way.”

He paused for a second to look over to see if Billy was paying attention. To his surprise, Billy seemed to be genuinely intrigued. He continued.


“Philip, I guess was what he liked to be called. Philip threw some set of circumstances or another was my friend. I used to have a lot of friends. It may surprise you but I was actually a pretty cool guy once upon a time, I think every boy in my first grade class was my friend, although some were admittedly just friends for the very reason that we males had to stick together back then. Girls had cooties and any other number of undesirable nasty diseases.”

“Anyway, somehow I must have pissed Philip off, because I have vague images of him hanging one handed off the tire ladder, wearing a green Celtics jacket and telling me off, saying that I’d blown him off for the last time, or the first grade equivalent of that anyway. And I remember that he hadn’t exactly been nice to me in any of the conversations we’d had after that. I can’t remember what I did. What I do remember is that he really hated me after that. He hated me a lot.”

“It’s amazing what terrible things human beings can do to each other without even realizing it.” Billy chimed in finally. He thought he was quoting some famous wit, or revered college professor.

“Okay, yeah I guess, but godamnit I didn’t do anything to this kid.”  Charlie could remember all the really terrible things he’d ever done and said so. One time he told his friend Chris that he was turning into a gorilla because he had a gigantic mole on his face. “I occasionally find out things people have said or done, and I oh so innocently let it slip in front of someone who would care. Sit back and watch a great show.” He smiled impishly and took a great big sip of his Vodka.

One might describe Charlie as a mild, and ultimately harmless sociopath.

“But I swear on Saint Anthony, Jesus, and the pope, that I never did a damn thing to this kid. Whatever horrible deed I apparently carried out against this kid, was his own creation. And maybe that’s it.  Most people just like to feel like they’ve been horribly victimized by something, it gives them the right to be mad, fills them with a feeling of righteous anger. In that case I don’t blame him, as long as were on this Earth we may as well have a good time”.

Charlie was a rare breed of human being, who actually got smarter when they were messed up, and with each sip of his Vodka he was becoming increasingly drunk.

Cigarette smoke, alcohol, and an interesting personality have a way of combining to produce some of the most interesting and profoundly absurd thoughts you can imagine.

“Anyway, that’s not my point. Let me ask you something Billy, have you ever noticed just how few types of people there really are? It’s like there’s a few categories that god chooses from and just throws in a few real characters, like Hitler and Mussolini to give the illusion of variety. I for instance have seen more than enough stocky, short, sandy haired, buck toothed kids, who laugh to much and just plain suck at getting other people to not despise them. It’s like a stock body, I see it fucking everywhere, dude.”

Billy hadn’t noticed that at all, but nodded anyway.

“They laugh and laugh and laugh, but nobody else likes them at all. Not one bit. Not one bit.” Charlie kept repeating that one line over and over seemingly entranced by it as if it had some magical connotation to it.

There was a chubby woman on TV listing all the virtues of the Blender she was trying to sell. Another stock body.

Billy all this time had been listening pretty hard, and though not the type to generally concern himself with other peoples thoughts, he wanted to know exactly what his roommate was getting at. “Yeah? So?”

Charlie stopped muttering and looked right at him and said, “I forgot. I dunno, I’m drunk I’m going to bed.”

Thus did the world lose out on what could have been a really great little piece of wisdom.

By the way what Charles Cutter Dark, would have eventually arrived at was this: Everybody just needed to lighten up, and everything would be ok.  Simple but true.

Let's examine something else for a moment.

There is man named Tomas Driver. Just to get it out in the open as quickly as
possible, Tomas is a very bad man. He kicks puppies, shakes down old ladies for money, laughs when he hears about people dying and so on. Tomas just happens to hold a very high ranking position in the United States Goverment. We don't really know exactly what it is he does, but it involves lots of secret murders and other really nasty stuff.

We think maybe he's an agent for THEM. Yes, that THEM.

Who covered up the Roswell landing?

THEM.

Who killed President Kennedy?

Yeah, it was THEM.

That whole thing with the landing on the moon?

That actually happened, but if it had been faked it would have been up to THEM to fake it.

Tomas pretty much just fucks around with people’s heads. Sometimes he'll call the police and report things stolen just for the hell of it. He can do that; he has authority and the privileges that come with authority. He shirks the responsibilities. If you need it explained to you why he's such a bad man, then you should refer yourself to a library and look up a book about nature Vs. Nurture and I'll let you decide for yourself.

He was responsible for investigating mysterious happenings and such in the district that Maddox's house had seemingly spontaneously combusted, and had just returned from searching the ruins for a survivor and was currently sitting at a bar looking over his findings. He hadn't found any trace of Maddox's body. It appeared to him that Maddox had set the fire himself and fled the country, but he couldn't figure out why, nor could he find any evidence of a bomb having been set. His partner a simpleton thug who had gotten into the organization through sheer unadulterated nepotism, his grandfather being one of the higher-ups in the outfit, was sitting at the bar knocking back shots of Peach Schnapps. He hadn't been able to identify with Tomas's idea that for once they should actually do something by the book because they were already catching so much heat for some of their more shady dealings, and had resigned himself to getting drunk.
His name was Edgar Radge. One might describe their relationship as a symbiotic deal they had worked out naturally as time went on and they got to know
Each other. Tomas told Edgar what to do and Edgar did it if Tomas promised to go to the McDonalds drive through after work.

"Edgar get over here." Tomas said.

Edgar got up from his barstool and walked towards Tomas. On the way over he took the money that somebody had left out for a waitress as a tip.
"Whatya want?" He said. "I'm busy, this is boring." Edgar pulled out a chair and sat down next to Tomas. He saw the page that Tomas had been drawing little diagrams with notes and arrows all over the place. "Ahhhh...yeah, I don't think I'll be much help here."

Tomas ignored him and kept looking over his papers. Something wasn't computing for him. No body, no evidence of arson, and yet as far as he knew no such thing as spontaneous combustion. Finally he looked up. "All right Edgar. We have to go back up there."

"Ahhh Shit. Can't you just make something up? Fill in the report forge some signatures whatever just come on man. It's not our job to solve every single little thing. This isn't a threat to national security. It's not even a threat to local pleasantness!" Tomas said. "Man, come on!"

Tomas had already started packing his things up in his briefcase. "Edgar get the check."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Driving up there they came to a red-light. While Tomas surely had the authority to drive right through it, he prided himself on his restraint.
If one breaks the rules all the time, then what fun is it? Just knowing that he could do whatever he wanted and Uncle Sam had his back (Actually it was an
extremely dangerous army with the absolute legal right to kill you, but Uncle Sam is a shorter name for that) was enough most of the time. No reason to be blatant about it.

""Hey man you remember Japan?" Edgar was reffering to a two month mission they had in Japan that they'd spent fucking around Tokyo.

"Yes, I remember Japan. It'd be tough to forget a whole country Edgar."

"No, I mean do you remember what we did in Japan? Remember how those Japs can drink? Jesus the japs can hold there liquor like nobody on earth man! I've never seen anything like that."

Tomas gave Edgar a quizzical look and decided to go through the light afterall. "The Japanese aren't particularly good drinkers, if you wanna call that a skill anyway."

"What are you talking about man? They drank me under the table. Not one of them even left the bar that whole night. I remember I came back later that night and they were still there man."

Tomas looked over at Edgar. "Edgar did you see anyone outside that bar drinking?"

Tomas pulled out a cigarette from his pocket "Gotta light?" "No" Edgar said. "No man, I didn't see anybody drinking outside the bar. But in the bar..."

"Exactly. In the bar. None of them ever left. The japanese aren't amazing drinkers you were just in a bar, those people were alcoholics. Alcoholics tend to be good drinkers Edgar, it's what they do."

Edgar finally found his lighter on the dashboard. "Yeah, whatever man. Mission accomplished though right?" At the end of the mission in Japan when they had to file the paperwork, they found the couldn't remember
what they were supposed to have been doing, so they just wrote "mission accomplished" and handed it in. This type of thing works surprisingly well.

"Put that cigarette out. Don't smoke in my car Edgar."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An hour and a half later they pulled in to the driveway where Maddox's house had once stood and got put of the car. The entire perimeter was closed off with police tape and the neighbors had been pretty good about leaving the place alone. It appeared that Maddox hadn't really been too friendly with any of his neighbors, none of them had any idea if he'd been having any money troubles, or if he seemed like the kind of person who would do something like this. None of them had been any help at all actually.

"Now what? It's all gone." Edgar said.

"Look for something. A gas can, some sign of something. Anything. There has to be something, things just don't blow up for no reason." Tomas said.


"Maybe it did. If theres no evidence otherwise, maybe it just did." Said Edgar.

"No, Edgar it's physics. Cause and effect. For every action theres a reaction, and you can't have a reaction without an action. It's a scientific law.
Things don't just blow up unexpectedly."

"Pearl Harbor was unexpected." Added Edgar.

Tomas bent over and examined a piece of melted piping. "Yeah, unexpected but quite obvious in it's cause. Japanese people were shooting at an American naval base. That's not spontaneous combustion."

"You don't call that spontaneous?" Edgar said.

"I call it good strategy actually." Just then Edgar stumbled apon a telephone.

"Hey, I found something."

"What?" Tomas said.

"A telephone, and it's totally together. Shit, not even a scratch."

Tomas glanced around the area. Looking at the devastation it was pretty surprising that anything would be found in good condition. But still it was just a telephone.

"Is it... a suspicious telephone?" Tomas asked.

Edgar turned it over and looked at it, trying to see if there was anything unusual about the telephone, but all he saw was little plastic words that said "Made in Brazil."

"Well, it's not made in China." Edgar said. "I guess it's mere presence it's sort of suspicious right?"

Tomas lifted himself off the ground he smoothed out the wrinkles on his black goverment agency type suit, and walked over to where Edgar was looking at the phone and grabbed it out of his hands. Tomas studied the phone the same way Edgar had.

Just a phone, just a phone. Just a blue, Touch-tone, medium sized phone.

"Edgar look for..." Then the phone rang.

The phone in the middle of an exploded wreckage, clearly not connected to any sort of phone jack rang. The phone from a house who's phone service was almost surely cancelled rang. And just to really hammer home the sheer impossibility of the situation, the phone, a gadget that clearly runs on elecrticity,
rang in a house who’s electrical circuits had melted fourteen hours earlier.

Tomas looked at Edgar for some sign that he wasn't hallucinating perhaps from inhaling some exploded house fumes, whatever those might be. Edgar gave him a look that could best be described as a "Aren't you going to answer it?" look.

"Of course." Tomas muttered under his breath. "Perfectly normal, perfectly natural."

"Hey, uh bud..." Edgar said. "I know Edgar" Tomas replied. Edgar pursed his lips together, and offered sheepishly, "Well your gonna get that I imagine."

Tomas looked at him the way a manic depressive might look at a cheerleader who just told him that the cure to his misery is for him to simply cheer up. The author knows that analogy is stretching a little, but if you don't like it, you can go and write your own book.

A world of sarcastic remarks suddenly exploded into being inside Tomas's brain but he let them die.

"I got it." Edgar said, and lifted up the phone.

"Hello?" Edgar said.

"No. You've got it reversed. No, ya do. Yeah, he's here but that's not his name. Oh, haha sure sorry." Edgar looked at Tomas.

"It's for you."

Tomas answered the phone. "Hello?" He said.

A gravelly male voice on the other end answered him back. "Driver Tomas?"

"Tomas Driver actually. And to whom am I speaking?"

"This is Richard Viel."

"I see, and what can be done for you Mr. Viel."

"Yes, can you get me Driver Tomas?"

"Mr.Viel that is me. But it's reversed my name is Tomas Driver."

"Well forget it then. The sheet isn't fucking wrong sir."

Click.


ELSEWHERE THE HEROES RECLINE



“The meaning of a life. It's a question they ask all the time, but it's not a question you can answer and not be lying. The act of answering is a lie, but that lie is as true as any answer you could give, and it fits the question like a glove. The lie is made of the same materials as life is. It's all the same, everything from the strings on an angels harp, to the mother of pearl ash tray of a tobacco executive. In science class they tell you its stardust, and they don't say just the concrete material. The words were everything and your abstract thoughts are concrete too when you put it to a logic test. Thoughts are just side effects sir, its shit that happens when your mind chemicals interact. I might go as far as to say you have no control over anything you do, but I won't quite put it down so bluntly the way the scientists and truth-fuckers do. You just are you, and even if you found out that you could control nothing about you, you will always still be you, and chemical reaction or heaven sent image of the lord, the knowledge that you can't ever be anything but a puppet with no master on this plane of existence probably wouldn't even distract you long enough to miss a punchline from the honeymooners.

So what again is the meaning of anything. Well I'll break it down. Your thoughts, are your soul. Your soul is chemical reactions created from hormones and gland secretions that happen automatically in response to tyour environment or natural pre-disposition. This is why we have serial killers. There chemicals tell them to rape and kill, or kill and rape, or rape, kill , attempt to revive and rape again. It depends. And nobody can resist what there chemicals order them to do. It cannot be done. If you wanna call that predeterminism, you go ahead and do that. Now chemicals exist inside your body, or more specifically the hunk of gray meat called your brain. The brain is protected by the skull and the skull exists in the world. The world exists in a vaccume of infinite and eternal space that is ninety percent nothing. Now in the gaps between the molecules that make up everything I've just described there is an infinite amount of space. In fact you can break those spaces into halfs as many times as you want and you will never get from space A to space B. Logically that is. Thus there is in fact more nothing inside of you, than there is actual solid matter. You are a ninety percent non-existent being that inhabits a world that exists in a huge stretch of pretty much jack diddy shit, that will eventually just blow up, or die in the way cosmic things do.

And its all this that makes science such a bleak thing. The spirit is not real. Science has proved it. There is logically no god. Everything has a reason. Now to me this is unacceptable. So I'm going to ignore science and truth, and live my life as a big lie. Electricity is magic, and the stars are holes in the blanket of night. They will tell you that love is an instinct that evolved out of the need for procreation and attraction, I will tell you that they can all go fuck themselves, and love is god inside of your bloodstream filling you with all that he is for just those fleeting moments when your close to the one you love. Tears are all of your sadness leaving your body because the sorrow would kill you if it just had to well up inside you forever.”
Mace looked at the man who said this and said “Good for you sweetheart.” Then shot him dead.

I’ll explain. This man was a thief who had tried to steal Mace’s car. Mace caught him and killed him, for revenge. The man knew he was going to die, because Mace told him he was going to kill him, and showed him the gun he would use. The man decided it was now or never to get his personal philosophy out into the world, or it would die with him. It did in fact die with him, because Mace wouldn’t remember it.

Mace had gone out to pick up some food supplies for himself and Maddox. Razora had left there companionship for the moment, and gone up to Vancouver where he had a friend who could set him up with some work for some lower level hoods, shilocking, strong arming and such, until Mace could round up a stable way of supporting them all. The government checks hadn’t stopped being automatically deposited in his account yet, but eventually someone would notice and that would be completely without income.

There decision to go AWOL had been so sudden, and unexpected. Neither Mace or Razora were really sure why they had done it, but an act like that to them, was honorable simply by how much it shows them to be masters of there own fates. Machine like government slaves they weren’t. To them it was important to be there own men, and leaving the employ of the Walrus masters was an important event.

But none-the-less, the stress of being a wanted man was getting to him, so he shot the damn thief.

Maddox had managed to curb Mace’s homicidal impulses as much as could be expected for a man that had literally possessed a license to kill anyone he deemed necessary, and had used it extensively, for all of his working life.

Mace walked back, homicide free, to the hotel room he and Maddox were staying in. They’d been there for three months now, with instructions to the maids to never ever come in for any reason. This instruction had surprisingly been issued by Maddox, not for any secretive purposes, but for the reason that he thought Mace might kill someone who disturbed his sleep, or said the wrong thing, or worn the wrong color, or any number of reasons.

In reality Mace was nowhere near THAT maniacally homicidal. But to someone like Maddox who had never seen anyone dead, let alone be killed, before he met Mace, Mace seemed like he valued human life like he valued a Kleenex and disposed of both as carelessly.

Maddox also found that Mace had a habit of singing in his sleep. Which was awkward.

The two of them, despite Maddox’s disapproving attitude towards murder, licensed or otherwise, got along pretty well. Maddox admired Mace’s strength of character, or rather consistency of character, and Mace found Maddox pleasant to be around. Mace was basically a smart capable man, who had little patience for fools, and a lot of pension for small talk. He and Razora had often discussed movies they both had seen on the way to assassinations. Maddox being of the American middle class, had a natural affinity for small talk as well, and it was their common link.

“Madd, this muffin is fucking delicious. It really is the most delicious muffin.” Mace said.

“It’s different from the other muffins in the box? They’re all the same.” Maddox replied.

“No, they aren’t. They really are somehow different I can’t explain it even.”

“Different taste?”

“Not that obvious.”

Maddox rubbed his chin “More muffiny than the others?”

“The fuck is muffiny?” Mace asked

“Just the quintessential quality that muffins all possess. They’re muffin-ness you might say.”

“You might say that.” Mace said.

That kind of thing. Banter. They played well off of each other. Seinfeldish. Gets pretty F-ing irritating to listen to after awhile.

Mace arrived at the hotel room, and found Maddox arguing with the manager of the place, who had every day for the past two weeks been pestering them, ever so politely, to get the fuck out or pay for there room. Maddox was trying to charm him into basically leaving without any money.

“Ah Mr. Ashtear…”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re a worthless piece of shit.” Mace said without even looking up. He was headed for the bathroom.

Maddox was aghast. This man was the person who would decide whether or not they would be staying or be kicked out, and Mace had verbally appraised his worth as being equal with shit.

“Ah. Charming.” The manager said.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, he’s been that way since his wife died.” Maddox lied.

“How awful for him.” The manager deadpanned.

Mace called from the bathroom. “Yeah I banged her so hard she exploded. Plus she was your mom fuckface.”

“Christ!” Maddox said.

“My mother is dead Mr.Ashtear. I don’t find your comments amusing.” The manager said sternly.

“Yeah I know I was there. I’m dreadfully sorry for your loss you cock-sucking asshole.”

“MR. ASHTEAR! As one human being to another I beseech you, attempt to find an ounce of basic respect that one person shows another as basic social obligation towards mankind. All I want is for you to pay me the money that I am rightfully owed. Now I don’t think I’m being outrageous, I’m not overcharging you, nor am I being overzealous in my collection methods. Now if you have the money to pay, I ask you to do so. If not I simply ask that you leave the premises.”

There was a silence now. Maddox thought that the manager had finally gotten through the Mace basic human decency, and cause him to think about the awful treatment he’d been giving the poor guy. Then they heard the toilet flush.

Mace stepped out. He appeared to be less malicious then his words had sounded, and he gave the manager a thoughtful look. “Hey man, listen…”

The manager looked hopeful, thinking he was about to get an apology or at the very least an acknowledgment of wrong doing on Mace’s part.

“You should be killed and your mother fucks demons in hell. I hope you get stabbed in the head by a pimp, and get found in an embarrassing postion four weeks later. Now get the fuck out of here before I shoot you. Your ugly and stupid. Fuck off.”

The manager stood amazed at the string of insults.

“GET THE FUCK OUT! NOW! GET OUT!”

He almost ran out after that.

“God damn.” Mace said as he lit a cigarette and sat down on the bed. “Asshole.”

“He’s an asshole?” Maddox asked. “That was quite simply the most blatant act of hostility I’ve been witness to. Not even in films have I seen such disregard for social graces.”

“Guys a fucking loanshark. That is a sin and he will be going to hell. I have no remorse.”

“He wants to be paid for service provided Mace. That’s not debt collecting that’s capitalism.”

“Take his side then. Guys a fucking asshole anyway. Not important right now how I treat him, I got a job.”

Maddox perked up at that. “What’s it pay?”

Mace exhaled smoke, attempting to form a ring, and failed. “Very little. Enough for a hook up in Vancouver. It’s about time we got Razora. I haven’t heard from him in awhile, we go up there, maybe he can get us a job doing underworld shit.”

“Were not criminals.”

“Shilocking is a victimless crime Madd.”

“What about the victim?”

“Bunch of fucking assholes.. Clearly I meant victimless except for them.”

More of that witty banter I talked about earlier.



Tomas once again found himself sitting in another smoky bar with his companion Edgar, pondering the events that had lead him to chase down a missing person, who, while of no real consequence in the official sense, had certain events surrounding his vanishing that were at the very least improbable. He was quite certain they were impossible. Normally Tomas was not one to follow his cases any farther then was necessary to keep up the appearance of respectability.
In fact his decision to delve deeper into the matter of Maddox Flint, can only realistically be attributed to whimsy. The way a dragonfly changes directions as suddenly as the wind currents compel it to, Tomas found himself following the leads merely because that’s what he was going to do. Circular logic.

“I’ll tell ya what we do Tom. We forget about it. We hire some Greeks to kill everyone that has any knowledge, barring of course our superiors who assigned us this mess, and that’s it. Bam, whole problems gone, we go and get a beer. Whole thing take two hours tops.”

Tomas made a sideways glance at Edgar and sighed. Edgar always favored hiring Greek thugs to murder anyone that might possibly generate more investigating on his part. If you were to question him about this rather odd quirk of his, mostly why he prefers Greek thugs to say Armenian thugs, he would answer, ““You know what they say about Greeks? Greeks don’t fight like heroes. Heroes fight like Greeks man. That’s what they say.” This of course is referring to some off the cuff remark Winston Churchill made during WW2. Where Edgar picked it up is anyone’s guess.

“No Edgar.” Tomas said. “Not that again. But we are going to need another man; two men can only do so much. We’ll need a third gun.”

“Why?” Edgar asked. “What’s the danger? We’ve got a missing person and a blown up house!”

“And a telephone ringing with no power source. Someone called us, through a telephone that could not logically work. I’m not taking any chances here. You want to go off and hire some thugs to murder every single person that may possibly have any knowledge of this event, and may I add this was your first suggestion. You did not suggest mass-murder as a last resort; you came out swinging with that as your plan A. You are clearly not going to be sufficient back up for me on this mission. We need a third man. You get on the horn, and call for Brixtone. Give him our location and have him meet us here within the hour.”

Brixtone was another Agent who worked for THEM. He’s a fucking pervert. He’s probably gay, he has bad hair, bad teeth, and he also has a rare mental disease that causes him to believe himself to be as sexually desirable as George Clooney with the genitals of a thoroughbred stallion. His employment at such an elite agency is a mystery, to everyone except those that know he has a lot of money and offered to pay for the strippers at the company’s annual Christmas bash.

And for those of you who wonder why Tomas would choose him as their back up, it’s because he is the only agent not currently deployed somewhere else.

Brixtone arrived at the smoky bar within the hour, accompanied by a tall broadly built man in a white lab coat, that had the words “Science Fucking Rocks!” embroidered across the front of it in big red letters.

They all found each other and made there way to a booth where they could discuss business.

Tomas immediately questioned Brixtone on who his large companion was. “This is Bill.” He said vaguely.

“Bill?” Tomas asked “You’ll need to be a bit more specific than that.” He turned now to address “Bill” directly. “What are your cred-”

Brixtone interrupted sharply. “Just Bill. That’s all you need to know. He will be accompanying us on our mission. If you have any complaints I suggest you file a report on completion of the mission, but I think you’ll find my bringing him along is a direct order from the higher-ups.”

Bill himself reached out his hand and through a big grin said, “Put ‘er their Tomas. My name as you’ve heard now is Bill. I was assigned to be your actual back-up while Brickdick here follows us around and gets to play secret agent.”

Brixtone looked over at Bill. He was aghast. “I thought you were the science specialist!”

“I am. You on the other hand have no specialty at all correct?” Bill asked.

“Well I’m a utility agent if that’s what you mean.”

“Face it, you have absolutely no reason for accompanying us.”

“I’m a respected agent!”

Bill relented. “Ok, I’ll play along. Why exactly are you coming with us? What is your motivation for accompanying us?”

Tomas realized that while this little spat was amusing to Edgar, and keeping Edgar amused was necessary, he was working on a time limit, and if this was how they were going to act, subduing Brixtone may prove necessary.

“I suppose I’m going out there… for science? No, not. I do not care about mystery. I think they’re paying me a lot. For all things sexy too, I do many things for that.” Brixtone said.

“WHAT? That’s preposterous you’re a hideous mess. Nobody would hire you for any reason, but doubly not for your looks pal.”

“Excuse me?” Brixtone said incredulously.

“Pardon?” Tomas interrupted.

Bill immediately regained his composure.

“Sorry Tomas.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


CHAPTER 678954673



Psychiatric Report #678954673 from the desk of Dr. Richard Viel. Specimen: Codename/Gravelvoice. Suffers from acute weird diseases. This guy is some seriously messed up shit. Following is a sample piece the doctor that are in charge of his care had him write. From the reports he seems to be a seriously cynical sort of person. Perhaps some sort of trauma in his past? Relying on simple psychiatric solutions as a crutch. His reason for being the way he is, is of no importance to me. Only what he knows that makes him different from the other patients. Sample taken: Write something serious. Write something serious. My hair is messy and greasy. My fingers are greasy from touching my hair, my nails caked and filled with dirt, write over the tips. My wrist has a long stitched cut below my hand. Right now it' wrapped in gauze or medical tape, or some unholy combo of both. Usually I like to play exhibitionist and  go around tape free, and shortsleeved. Makes me feel like other people think I have a mysterious second life, but they probably just think I'm suicidal. Neither's true anyway, I'm fucking clumsy as a son of a bitch.

I hate people that talk about their problems, it's such a huge assumption to think that other people find you important enough to hear about your shitty life. Even if they ask don't tell them, it cheapens everything. If your latest relationship has ended don't write angsty messages in your IM profile. Broadcasting all that angsty fucking bullshit is plain fucking bad for the human race. Your contributing to a culture of touchy feely crybaby ri-fucking-diculousness. In fact I take offense to all human communication from this day forward. Your only being honest when your fighting or fucking. Everything else is keeping up appearances, and role playing. The only honesty is in reaction. Reaction to a fist in your face, or a pair of huge heaving tits.

I don't understand the concept of pairing off. People get together and proclaim themselves a unit or some sort of alliance, but all they do is tell eachother how cool and neat the other one is, then when one gets bored of the other they "take a break" or if the one who's breaking it off has balls they just end it. Then they both write angsty poems and say vaguely depressing sounding things, example "I feel like I'm constantly falling." When I heard that I was absolutely dumbfounded. What does that mean, you literally feel a sensation of active constant freefall? Your a fucking liar, you couldn't keep yourself standing up, you'd scream everytime you closed your eyes. What do you really feel like? You just found a generic depressing term and used it to make yourself seem hurt didn't you? That's how it looks to me.

And anyone that says things like "I love everyone really." Or "I don't care if other people do it, it's just not my thing" and especially "My so and so did so and so and he died/got busted/got raped by a ballerina/, so I don't do that anymore."
Your lying too. Nobody can live with an attitude towards life that blanketly covers any of those statements. All attitudes towards anything I'm convinced are contrived projections of what a person wants to think. I think love and hate are both things people made up. I can feel like I'm in love with just about any girl I spend more than two minutes with, but it passes. I think I hate someone and later I just don't give a shit, in fact I start to kind of like the person. Because it's all chemical reactions. It's hormones and blood working on your body trying to make you fuck. At least love is, I don't know what hate is. I know sometimes you get an overwhelming desire to crush someones face under your shoe, or snap they're spine over your knee and cave in they're neck with your fingers. If you do you feel a tremendous release. It's like a bizarro orgasm. But fewer people experience the bizzaro orgasm then the real one, most people don't get to that edge.

I think using humor as a shield is the wussiest bullshit a man can do. It's pandering for people to like you in the worst way, you become a monkey, a piece of human performance art by an artist who just wants some good reviews. A human metaphor for the bargaining process. "I make you laugh you like me." Some people get addicted to it. Everything you say has to achieve some kind of joyous response, or you don't feel like you've accomplished anything, talking for them is like masturbation more than it is communication. I don't know why it's not classified as a mental illness, when it's working it's glorious but when it's failing and the addict can't get his fix it's like a personal nuclear meltdown everytime. Highs and lows.

The only honestly pure and good thing in the entire world is Queen. Everything else is stupid.


End of Sample.

Analysis: Subject shows clear understanding of self. View on life actually somewhat seductive, as many nihilistic philosophies can be. Further study suggested


-DR. Richard S. Viel.

PS. I’ve enclosed several remarks made by the patient that I think are interesting. I hope they will be of some help to you in your investigation.

“You can’t rape the willing. Or you can but it’s harder.”

“Cut him hoe bag!”

“My main duty I think is to impress upon people that I exist, very strongly and to not let them walk away from a meeting with me without some kind of emotional scarring.”

“Theres a part of me that exists apart from my main psyche. It’s the standbyer. He sets himself apart from my id and simply watches the actions of others, who then filters it through to my need for constant admiration who gets advice from my intellect and humor defense mechanism and they can spit out a hilarious message to keep people from learning of my fear of not being applauded for each and every thing I do, yet at the same time being amusing to others so that they think I’m awesome. For some reason this reflex does not seem to exist in the company of losers and ugly chicks. This proves the reflex is in narcissistic nature, as I do not feel the need to be entertaining around such undesirable persons. I feel as if it is not a gift worth being wasted on such people. I will save that giggle for a hot female, or even an average to slightly below average one. But not a full blown fatty/ugly.” – said during psychiatric interview with myself.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




CHAPTER Pumpkin. (I forgot what number Chapter I was on)


Mace and Maddox walked the streets of Vancouver; looking for the establishment Razora had told them to meet him at. A place called Rollers, a restaurant they figured. Maddox had never been to Vancouver in his own world, and as far as he knew there was nothing different about the city in the Oddworld (as he had taken to calling it) and his Homeworld. It was a clean city for the most part, less litter than he was used to seeing, with a decent variety of businesses and buildings. Maddox found the city to be on the whole the most pleasant location he had visited during his entire ordeal in Oddworld.

“I hate this place.” Mace said.

“It seems nice.” Maddox replied. Maddox had noticed just then that they’re was a group of children amassed near an old man telling a story. The kids laughed with delight at the story the man was telling, it was an idyllic scene and Maddox was overjoyed at finding a place where his chances of being shot, stabbed, clubbed to death, or otherwise maimed in any fashioned, seemed low.

“It just won’t get with the times. This city’s the oldest in the civilized world, and it shows.” Mace said.

“Mace it looks like a perfectly lovely town, what possible fault could you find with the one place we haven’t been assaulted in?” Maddox asked.

At that moment they passed a white sign with the words “Tobacco-Free zone.” Printed on it. A passer by would see Maces subsequent lighting of a long white cigarette at that exact moment as an act of defiance, but really Mace just didn’t see rules as applying to him at any time. It wasn’t an act of defiance, it was Mace functioning normally. Mace strongly believed in the law, and enforcing it on others, but he figured they wouldn’t have given him the power to delve out punishments and kill those who break the law, if he himself wasn’t above that law. How could someone punish a peer, what gave them the authority? Only one who’s above everyone else has that right.

Anyway.

“That’s my point exactly Maddox. They think they’re too good for violence. And don’t think this hasn’t been a problem before. Do you know how many times I’ve taken a company of soldiers here on training? We try to start a fight but they offer us sweets and free back massages. And I am NOT kidding, I literally have a coupon in my pocket right now for a free rub down at the prestigious Vancouver Holliday Inn I was given by a pregnant woman that I had just shot in the leg for Jaywalking. It’s fucking ridiculous out here.”

Maddox tried to see his point of view, and as usual failed. To Maddox that kind of Jesus-like behavior was pretty damn admirable.

“There was no valid point in that entire tirade, you know that.” Maddox said.